With good speed she soon reached the house, hurriedly told her mother what had befallen Rosy and the condition she had found things in at the negro settlement, and then, telling her she would be back in a few moments, she flew post-haste across the road to Mrs. Morrow's house.

Here the Pioneers with eager, expectant faces were all talking animatedly, their brown uniforms, red ties, and broad-brimmed hats suggestive of the good time in store for them.

"Oh, here she comes!" sang out Helen, as she spied Nathalie hastening up the path towards the veranda. "Why, where have you been? We began to think you were not coming."

"I had to go on an errand for Mother!" Then with glowing eyes she told them of the visit to the colored settlement and about the lost Rosy, the grief of her mother, and how there was no one looking for the child.

"Oh, girls," she ended in a quiver of excitement, "let's give up the bird-hike for to-day, and see if we cannot find little Rosy!"

CHAPTER IX-SEARCHING FOR ROSY

An oppressive silence followed, while each girl looked blankly at her neighbor. The new Pioneer's face flushed, and her eager, excited eyes shadowed, as she quickly realized that in her eagerness to follow the law of kindliness she had been too officious. She stood in dismayed embarra.s.sment, the chill of an unpleasant surprise benumbed her. With a faint hope she turned her eyes appealingly towards Helen, surely her level head and kind heart would prompt her to second her. Helen caught the look and smiled faintly.

Edith, who was always the first one to either second or down a proposition, broke the silence by exclaiming in an aggrieved tone, "Why, the idea, Nathalie Page! we can't give up the bird-hike, we've all brought our lunches!"

"I should say not," interposed Lillie Bell with flashing eyes. "Why, it would take the whole morning, and there could be no hike for to-day, and next week I can't go, I-"

"Oh, they have probably found the child by this time!" ventured Barbara North, to Nathalie's surprise, as she had always found her of a kindly nature.

"Well, _I_ for _one_ don't think it is our place to look for the child, anyway," a.s.serted Jessie, decisively. "Let the men of the town do it.

There are three policemen hanging around all day with nothing to do."

Nathalie's cheeks had lost their pink bloom; her face stiffened as she retorted coolly, "Well, just as you please, I see I have made a mistake." She nerved herself. "I thought kindliness was one of the laws of the organization, and it seemed to me that our pleasure was to take a secondary place when we had an opportunity to do a kind act. If you had seen the poor mother sobbing-"

"Oh, fiddle!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lillie, "those colored people are all emotion; their sobs don't count for much. I agree with Jessie that the townspeople should send out a search party, and I for one refuse to give up the hike. Who's on my side?" she ended abruptly, turning and facing the group.

"I!" and "I!" shouted several voices at once in answer.

Nathalie backed towards the edge of the veranda. "I seem to be in the minority," she said with a.s.sumed indifference, although her heart was beating in double-quick time, for something had whispered, "They are very rude, I would resign immediately." But this suggestion was bravely silenced by the thought, "No, I will not be as small as that, I will show I do not care."

"There must be some one who thinks as I do," she ended resolutely, wishing that she could run from this affront to her sensitiveness.

"I am with you, Nathalie!" suddenly cried Helen, walking towards her friend and putting her arm around her.

Grace looked at the bevy of girls who had bunched together, then at the faces of her two friends. In a faint voice she a.s.serted lamely, "And I, Nathalie, I didn't stop to think-"

"And, Nathalie, you can count me on your side!" broke in a voice at this moment. The girls, alert at the prospect of a division in the group, turned quickly to see Mrs. Morrow place herself by the side of Nathalie, taking her hand as she did so and giving it a cordial squeeze.

Nathalie's color came racing back and her heart leaped with joy. Ah, then she had not been too officious, after all! She turned to see the girls standing in embarra.s.sed silence with shamed eyes and uncertain mien. But Lillie, who was generally the spokesman of the group when Helen was on the opposite side, cried somewhat pertly, "Why, Mrs.

Morrow, do you think it is our place to go and hunt for that colored child? I should think it was the duty of the townspeople to look after those things."

"That is not the question," replied the Director coldly. "As Nathalie said, kindliness is one of the basic laws of the organization. We should be poor Pioneers indeed if we saw a man drowning and then stood and argued as to whether it was our place to save him or not. Nathalie, I commend you not only for your kind suggestion, but for having the real pioneer courage in maintaining what you believed to be right. You have shown yourself a true Blue Robin and I am proud of you. Now, girls, we will put it to a vote. Those of you who want to go on the hike, up with their hands." Not a hand was raised.

Mrs. Morrow's face brightened as she cried laughingly, "Now who wants to join a search-party with Nathalie as captain, and see if they can find little Rosebud?"

Every hand flew up, and there was a general cry of, "I do! I do!"

"Well, girls," said Mrs. Morrow kindly, as her eyes traveled from face to face, "I see you have repented of the error of your way. Let Nathalie's example inspire you!"

"Oh, I guess we just didn't stop to think!" broke forth Barbara, with shamed eyes.

"Well, when one has made up her mind to do a thing she would be a saint to give it up without a fuss," remarked Lillie. "Of course, Nathalie was all right, but she had had time to think it all out and we hadn't!"

"A good explanation, Lillie," answered Mrs. Morrow, "but I hope you have all learned a lesson. Now, Nathalie, make your suggestions and we'll get to work."

The new Pioneer had already divided the girls into two sections, with Helen as one leader, and Lillie Bell as the other. It did hurt a little to give Lillie the first place after she had spoken as she had, but Nathalie realized her worth, and then, too, she did not want to show any resentment. "You see," she explained, "I am only a dummy captain, for I am not as familiar with the town as the rest of you are, and there will be no time lost in making false moves."

"That is a very sensible decision, Nathalie," nodded Mrs. Morrow, "but the question is where to look first!"

"Suppose we go down to the settlement, make a survey, and get our bearings?" voiced Helen.

"Good, Helen, that is just the thing!" acquiesced the Director, as the girls at her suggestion hurriedly deposited their lunch-boxes in the hall, while Nathalie ran over to tell her mother her plans.

In a few moments the would-be searchers started, each girl equipped with her staff, while the two leaders triumphantly displayed their whistles, which they claimed would be of great help if any of the party got lost and their voices did not carry.

It did not take long to reach Felia's shanty, and as Nathalie ran in to tell her that the Pioneers were going to hunt for Rosy, the rest of the party gazed with quick, alert eyes first in one direction and then in the other.

"I should not be surprised if the child had wandered away looking for flowers," remarked Mrs. Morrow, suddenly remembering what Nathalie had said the child was doing when she was last seen.

"But where would she be apt to go?" inquired Nathalie, who had returned in time to hear Mrs. Morrow's remark.

"Why, to the woods!" retorted Helen quickly, and her eyes lighted in sudden thought as they dwelt on a green belt of woodland that loomed against the sky on the opposite side of the road.

"Don't you think she might have strayed down the hill?" questioned Nathalie, pointing to a pond shimmering in the sun at the bottom of a knoll near-by. "Poor Mammy is quite sure she is drowned and lies at the bottom of the pond."

"Well, I'll tell you what we can do," spoke up Lillie, "I'll take my squad and search down by the pond, and Helen and the rest of you can go over to the woods; somehow I'm with Mammy, for all children love to paddle in the water."

Lillie's suggestion was a timely one, and as she, Grace, Jessie, and a few Orioles disappeared over the slope of the hill, Helen and Nathalie, as the advance guard, hurried across the road and into the cool recesses of the woods. As they hastened onward every girl's eyes were alert, watchfully peering behind every bush and tree as they stumbled over gnarled roots and broken stumps in their efforts to reach some shaded nook, or lichen-covered rock dimly seen in the shadows of the trees.

Helen proved an efficient leader and did not hesitate to keep her followers busy, as she sent first one and then the other to look here or there, determined not to miss a nook or spot where the child might be hidden. Every now and then some of the party would give a bird call, or Helen's whistle would reverberate sharply through the swaying pines.

But Mrs. Morrow, whose strength began to waver, finally suggested to Nathalie and Edith, who had been acting as her body-guard, that they rest for a few minutes. Spying a decayed tree-trunk that had fallen across the damp, spongy earth a few feet away, they seated themselves upon it.

"Oh, I'm really tired!" exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, for she had proved as indefatigable as the girls in searching, thinking, she declared, of her own two kiddies safe in the garden at home.

Nathalie, impressed by the solemn stillness about her, slowly fanned herself with her hat, while Edith made frantic dabs at her red face, from which beady drops were oozing. "Oh, I should just love to stay here all day," she cried, sniffing the air, redolent with the odors of pine, spicy balsam, silver birch, and many other trees that loomed darkly in the mysterious retreats of the forest.

"Hark!" cried Mrs. Morrow, suddenly putting up her hand for silence as she peered up at the green boughs above her. "Taweel-ab, taweel-ab, twil-ab, twil-ab!" came in a succession of weird, sweet trills.

"Wheew, whoit, wheew, whoit!" imitated the Sport with quick readiness.

"It is a hermit thrush!" explained Mrs. Morrow softly, and her hand clutched Nathalie's as she pointed to a brown bird that was scudding swiftly over the fern a few feet away.

"Oh, isn't it a dear?" whispered delighted Nathalie, for to her this coming, as she called it, into the very heart of nature was a new experience. She half regretted at times that they had been compelled to forego the bird-hike, as she was so anxious to get in touch with the feathered songsters of the wood and field. Then, too, suppose the searching-party should fail of its purpose, she would feel that she had been the means of leading them on a wild-goose chase!

As her eyes roamed here and there in the hope that she might see the brown thrush again, she started, stared a moment, and then springing to her feet dashed across to the clump of ferns where the bird had been flying.