The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp Part 10

"Better lie flat for a while," he ordered in a tone of authority. "I wonder where her people are?" the doctor added to himself, glancing again at the five cot beds. Then he drew up a chair and watched Miss Helen Campbell as she dropped into a doze.

In a little while she exclaimed in a much stronger tone of voice:

"Please take me out of this wobbly thing; I want to lie on my own bed."

The walking-doctor promptly lifted her in his arms like a little child and deposited her on one of the cots. Her hands were cold, and he covered her with a Roman blanket that lay on the foot of the bed. Then he found two hot water bottles, marched down stairs, heated a kettle of water on the kerosene stove, searched for beef tea in the ice chest and by good luck found half a jar. With the water bottles at her feet and a little beef tea to nourish her, Miss Campbell at last fell into a deep sleep, while the doctor, sitting near at hand, read one of the magazines and, occasionally tip-toeing to her bedside, listened to her breathing and felt her pulse.

Toward late afternoon, he descended into the lower regions of the log house and foraged for food. He found crackers and cheese, a tin of beans and a bottle of ginger ale. Having refreshed himself, he was about to return to his patient when Mr. Lupo staggered into the kitchen with a market basket on his arm.

"Where is my wife?" he asked in a thick voice.

"She is not here and you'd better go, too, quick," answered the doctor.

Mr. Lupo looked at him with an ugly expression, his eyes narrowing, as his wife's had done when she had approached Miss Campbell with the carving knife.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am a doctor."

"Has anything happened? My wife, she is crazy when she is mad. Is that the reason why she ran away?"

"Does your wife flourish carving knives?"

Mr. Lupo retreated with a terrified expression.

"She has--?" he was too frightened to finish.

"No," replied the doctor. "The lady was too strong for her here." He touched his forehead with his finger.

"She was not touched--the lady?"

"No, but she has collapsed from fright,--she is very ill,--I could not answer for her recovery if you gave her another shock."

Without a word, Mr. Lupo rushed out of doors, jumped into a rickety wagon drawn by an old mountain-climbing horse and in another instant was clattering down the road.

Toward evening Miss Campbell grew stronger. The doctor raised her head and fed her by the spoonful a cup of malted milk, also found in the ice chest.

"Billie?" she said.

"That's my name," answered the doctor. "William for long."

"Nice boy," she added, patting him on the shoulder, with a very small limp hand. "Have the children got back?"

"They will be here pretty soon, now," he answered, frowning and glancing at his watch.

"Ben is a safe guide. They are safe with him. Wake me when they arrive,"

and turning over on her side, Miss Campbell went back to sleep.

Occasionally the doctor scanned the side of the mountain with his telescope.

"The children are taking a long time," he said to himself. "They had better look alive, if they want to make it before nightfall."

But night fell and there was no sign of the wanderers. The doctor lit a cigar and watched the shadows creep up the side of the mountains. He listened to the last twittering of the birds and then a silence, profound and deep, settled on the camp.

Again he descended to the living room of the camp now in darkness.

Presently he lighted the green shaded lamp and two lanterns, hanging one at the front of the house and the other at the back. He unpacked the market basket and cooked himself some supper, and finally with a gla.s.s of milk and a slice of bread for Miss Campbell when she waked, returned to the upper sleeping porch.

"A telescope is an excellent thing," he observed, settling himself in a steamer chair, a lamp on the floor beside him with a tin protector to keep draughts from the flame. "I saw the woman plainly enough flouris.h.i.+ng the carving knife. It must have been sheer force of will on the part of this little lady that made her drop it."

And now the darkness had indeed fallen, a black, impenetrable curtain.

Only the outline of the opposite range could be seen. It seemed to have closed in on the camp, and like a gigantic wall, to shut it off from the outer world. An owl hooted in a tree not far away and from a cleft in the mountains came the weird song of the whippoorwill.

CHAPTER VII.

PHOEBE.

Fate had chosen a very simple way of bringing about events of great importance to persons in this history. A doctor off on a walking trip had idly lifted his telescope to scan the village in the valley. As he swept his gla.s.s over the country, it had brought near to him glimpses of white farmhouses, men working in the fields and then looming quite close and unexpectedly large to his eye, a woman brandis.h.i.+ng a long knife over the head of a person in white.

The doctor lost no time in idle speculation.

"It's in that camp on the lower ledge," he said to himself as he dashed down the path, and in some twenty minutes or more entered the living room of Sunrise Camp.

It is not pleasant to think of what might have happened to Miss Helen Campbell if the doctor's alert, intelligent eyes had not caught and instantly comprehended the significance of the picture brought to him by the telescope. How long might she have lain there unconscious, or how dealt with the half-intoxicated Lupo if he had mounted the steps in search of his wife? Then, as the hours slipped on and no human soul came near to minister to her and comfort her, and she had finally realized that her young people had never returned, how would she have endured that second shock?

Fate had brought the doctor in the nick of time to perform an inestimable service to the Motor Maids and to all those who knew and loved Miss Helen Campbell.

And through this service to the friends of Miss Campbell, another was to follow,--one filled with danger and interest, which would require all the skill of his profession.

About ten o'clock Miss Campbell awoke, refreshed and rested. She took the milk and bread with an appet.i.te. Then she examined the stranger at her bedside with some curiosity.

"I suppose they sent for you from the village?" she asked.

"I happened to be nearer than that," he answered.

Memory was returning by slow degrees.

"I had a shock of some sort; or was it a fall? I remember fainting and the next thing I recall was aromatic ammonia and you." The doctor smiled. "I suppose they are all in bed now. They were too tired to sit up."

"It was so late, you see," he said apologetically.

"They needn't have left me this enormous porch to myself. I know they will hate sleeping down there. Can't Billie come and speak to me?"

"I am afraid he's sound asleep by now."

"He?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the patient. "But, of course, how could you be expected to know my young cousin by name. She is the tall girl with the gray eyes. I think she is beautiful. Perhaps you might not--but you would--"