The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay Part 40

"No, let them go--it's the easiest way," advised Jack. "Cora has the papers."

"But maybe they've hurt Denny!" said Walter.

"I'm all right," a.s.serted the fisherman, as he slowly arose. "He just cut off my wind for a minute. I'm all right. But where are the papers?" and he looked about the floor, on which were scattered pieces of the broken red oar.

"They're safe," answered Jack. "Cora, my sister, has them. Guess we'd better look for her though."

There was no need, as Cora, holding the papers in her hand, re-entered the cabin at that moment. Only one edge of the legal doc.u.ments was burned, and no real harm had been done.

While the motor girls, and the boys and the neighboring men, who had come to the rescue all but too late, were looking at one another there was heard, at the dock, the puffing of a motor boat.

"There they go!" exclaimed Walter.

"Well, that's the best way," said Jack. "We're glad to get rid of them."

"How did you girls get here?" asked Ed.

"How was it you boys _didn't_ get here?" demanded Cora, still panting from her exertions.

Explanations were then in order. I will be as brief with them as I can. How the girls came to go to the cabin is already known. And how the boys, foolishly perhaps, went out on the bay while waiting for Denny to come back, and how they became stalled, is likewise known to my readers.

In the meanwhile Denny came to his cabin.

Then came the unexpected help in the shape of a tow from the plotters themselves.

"They left us at Buler's," said Jack, "and then we had our own troubles. We tried to get a boat to come on, for the _Dixie_ still refused to move. But we couldn't get one for love or money, and it was too rough to row."

"What did you do?" asked Cora, looking at Denny, who was examining the broken red oar.

"We hired a horse and carriage, and came around the land way," replied Walter. "It took us a long time, too, for we missed the road."

"But we finally got here," spoke Ed.

"And just in time," added Cora. "We were wild about you--couldn't imagine what happened."

"Didn't you get the note we left pinned to the door?" asked Dray of Denny.

"Nary a note," he said.

Later it was found where it had blown into a clump of bushes. So that accounted for Denny's not being warned in time.

"But everything seems to be coming out right," said Cora, with a rather wintry smile. All the girls were pale, and a trifle weak. The boys, too, were tired.

"And what are those papers?" asked Jack, taking them from Cora.

"Those prove Mrs. Lewis's t.i.tle to the land the plotters tried to get," she said. "Oh, I'm so glad we found them."

"Who found them?" asked Walter, giving Cora's hand a surrept.i.tious squeeze.

"They were in the red oar," said Denny. "And to think I never knew it!

They were there all these years, and all of us worrying about them and wondering where they were. But I understand now. Grandfather Lewis must have hollowed out a hole in the handle, hid the papers in it, and then plugged it up. Then he gave the oar to me to keep. I remember well at the time he said it would prove valuable some day. I often wondered what made the oar lighter than it had been. It was because it was hollowed out.

"I asked him what he meant by sayin' the oar was valuable, but he kept puttin' me off. He said he'd tell me some time, but he never did. Then the day he died he sent for me, and was trying to tell me, I guess, but he couldn't. I remember I wondered what was on his mind, but he was too weak to explain. So he died with his secret, and the red oar had it and kept it all these years.

"But the oar broke, or those men and myself broke it between us, and the papers fell out. Now the widder will get her rights."

And the Widow Lewis did. Leaving the valuable doc.u.ments with Denny, the motor girls and the boys went back to their stopping places--the girls to the bungalow, the boys to the tent.

And such a time as Cora and her chums had in telling the good news to Mrs. Lewis and Freda! The latter could hardly believe it at first.

"Oh, how can we ever thank you!" cried Freda, as, with tears in her eyes, she embraced Cora.

"Don't try," was the whispered answer.

And so everything came out right after all. The papers so oddly hidden in the red oar proved the widow's t.i.tle to the valuable land beyond the shadow of a doubt. As for the plotters, they were not seen again in that part of the country. They realized that the sharp trick they had tried to play had failed, thanks to the activities of Cora and her friends.

Mrs. Lewis easily established her claim to the land, moved back to her cottage, and the project of spoiling the public park was abandoned.

The factory company was beaten in court and the members of the corporation were forced to pay heavy costs.

Old Denny came in for his share of credit, and he was very happy. His one lament was that the red oar was broken, but he managed to patch it together, after a fas.h.i.+on. And the motor girls got him another dog.

The opening by which the papers had been put in the hollow handle had been cleverly concealed, and, only for the accidental breaking of the oar, might never have been discovered.

It had probably been the intention of Grandfather Lewis to disclose the secret hiding place of the land papers, but he had died before he could do this.

"But 'all's well that ends well,'" quoted Cora the next day, at a late breakfast. "We have done a little good here by our vacation at Crystal Bay."

"A _little_ good!" exclaimed Freda. "I never can thank you enough, Cora."

"And we'll soon have to go back home--that's the worst of it!" sighed Lottie. "It is so lovely here!"

"Oh, well, we can come back next year," spoke Bess.

"And then, too, Winter's coming on--something is sure to happen then,"

added Belle. "Something always does."

And what did happen that Winter will be told of in the volume to follow this, which will be called "The Motor Girls on Waters Blue; Or, The Strange Cruise of the _Tartar_."

It was the next day. The girls disposed themselves about the bungalow in picturesque att.i.tudes, and the boys sat on the broad porch, telling over again the adventures of the night.

"There's only one point we're shy on," said Jack, when everything had been told and retold.

"And that's what?" asked Ed.

"We haven't found out yet who the strange woman was who tried to get information out of Freda, and who sent her the 'phone message."

"Oh, we're just as well off without knowing that," said Cora. "I'm sure she was in with the plotters. You know that man Bruce called her 'Confidence Kate,' as if he knew her well."

"You must have been terribly frightened, when you found out there was no way of getting home from the Junction," said Marita. "I think I should have gone out of my mind."