The Curlytops on Star Island Part 17

But Teddy did not speak all that was in his mind. If a professor was one who found out things, then the small boy decided he would be one long enough to find out about the tramps, and perhaps find the cave where they lived, and then he could tell Jan.

When Trouble had been put into dry clothes and sent to sleep by his mother's singing, "Ding-dong bell, p.u.s.s.y's in the well," Jan and Ted sat by themselves, talking over what had happened that day. Ted was making a small boat to sail on the lake, and Jan was mending her doll's dress, where a p.r.i.c.kly briar bush had torn a little hole in it.

Early the next morning Ted slipped away from his place at the breakfast table, and motioned to Jan to join him behind the sleeping tent. Ted held his finger over his lips to show his sister that he wanted her to keep very quiet.

"What's the matter?" she whispered, when they were safe by themselves.

"Did you see the tramp-man?"

"No, but I'm going to find him!"

"You are?" cried Janet, and her eyes opened wide with wonder and surprise.

"Don't tell anybody," went on Ted. "We don't want Trouble to follow us.

Come on off this way," and he pointed to a path that led through the bushes back of the tent.

Trouble was busy just then, playing in the sand on the sh.o.r.e of Clover Lake, while Mrs. Martin and Nora were clearing away the breakfast things. Grandpa Martin was raking up around the tents, so no one saw the Curlytops slip away.

"Which way are you going?" asked Jan of her brother.

"Over to the spring."

"What for? To get more water? Where's your pail?"

"I don't have to get water yet," answered Ted. "I'm going to the spring to look to see if I can tell which way that tramp went. Don't you know how Indians do--look at the leaves and gra.s.s in the woods, and they can tell by the marks which way anybody went? Mother read us a story once like that."

"I don't like Indians," remarked Jan somewhat shortly, half turning back.

"Oh, there's no Indians!" exclaimed Ted impatiently. "I was only sayin'

what they did. Come on!"

So Jan followed her brother, though she was a little bit afraid.

However, she saw nothing to frighten her, and it was nice in the woods.

The wind was blowing through the trees, the birds were singing and it was cool and pleasant. The Curlytops soon came to the spring where Trouble had fallen in.

"Now we must look all around," declared Teddy.

"What for?" his sister demanded again.

"To tell which way the tramp-man went. Then we can find his cave."

"Maybe he lives in a wagon or a tent."

"Then we'll find them. Come on, help look!"

"I don't know how," confessed Janet.

"Well, look for a place where the bushes are broken down and where you see footprints in the dirt. That's the way Indians tell. Mother read it out of a book to us."

So Jan and Ted looked all around the spring, and at last Ted found a place where it seemed as if some one had run through in a hurry, for twigs were broken off the bushes, and, by looking down at the ground, he saw the marks of shoes in the dirt.

Of course Ted could not tell who had made them, but he thought surely it must have been the tramp who had pulled Trouble from the spring. Ted was sure they were not the footprints of himself and his sister, for their own were much smaller.

"Come on, Jan!" cried Teddy. "We'll find that tramp now or, anyway, the place where he hides."

He pushed on through the bushes. There seemed to be a sort of path leading away from the spring, which was not the same path that Ted and Grandpa Martin took when they went from the camp to the water-hole to fill the pail each day.

On and on went Ted, with Jan following. She was so excited now at the thought that perhaps they might find something, that she was not a bit frightened.

"Wait a minute! Wait for me, Teddy!" she called, as her brother hurried on ahead of her.

"Come on, Jan!" he called. "There's a good path here, and I guess I see something. Oh, look here! Oh, Jan! Oh! Oh!" suddenly cried Teddy. Then his voice seemed to fade away, as if he had all at once gone down the cellar, and Jan could hear him calling faintly.

"Oh, Teddy! What's the matter? What's the matter?" she cried as she ran on through the bushes.

"I've found the cave!" was his answer, so faint and far away that Jan could hardly hear. "I've found the cave. I fell right into it! Come on!"

CHAPTER X

THE GRAPEVINE SWING

Wondering what had happened to her brother, Jan hurried on toward the place from which his voice came. It sounded more than ever as if he were down a cellar.

"But there can't be any cellars in these woods," thought the little girl.

"Where are you, Teddy?" she called after a bit. "I can't see you!"

"Here I am, right behind you!" was the answer, and Jan, turning quickly, saw the head of her brother sticking up out of a hole in the ground.

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Ted's sister. "Where's the rest of you? Where's your legs and your feet?"

"Down in the hole," explained Teddy. "I'm in the cave. I fell in. That's how I found it."

"Is it a real cave?" asked Janet.

"It is. It goes away back under the ground, only I didn't go in 'cause it's so dark. I'm going to get a light and see what's there."

"I'm not!" said Jan, very decidedly.

"Well, then I'll get grandpa. Maybe this is the cave where the tramps live. Come and look where I am. You won't fall in."

"How did you find it?" asked Janet, as she walked toward the hole, down in which Teddy was standing. It was a little way from the path the two Curlytops had walked along through the woods--the path leading from the spring.

"I just fell in it, I told you," Ted answered. "I was walking along, and, all at once, I slipped down through the dried leaves. First I thought I was going down in a big hole, but it isn't over my head and a lot of leaves went down with me, so I didn't get jounced hardly at all."