Eleanor made an heroic effort. She raised herself to a sitting position.

"Madge! Phil! Oh, come to me!" she cried. Then Eleanor fainted.

It was a limp, white figure that Madge, running ahead of all the others, found stretched out on the gra.s.s. Her companions soon caught up with her.

"Nellie is dead!" cried Lillian, bursting into tears and sinking down beside her friend on the gra.s.s.

"Oh, no," a.s.sured Phil, "Nellie has only fainted." She turned quietly to David and Jack. "Go back, please, and tell Mr. Preston and some of the other men to bring a cot on which to carry Eleanor. She is only worn out and exhausted with exposure and pain. She will be all right soon.

Don't look so heartbroken Madge."

Madge had not taken her eyes from her cousin's pale, haggard face. She could not believe that she was really looking at Eleanor. Could this poor, white, exhausted little creature be her Nellie? Why, it was only the afternoon before when Madge had last seen Eleanor laughing and talking to Harry Sears. And now----!

A few minutes later the men came with the cot and Eleanor was carried to the Preston home. Everybody, except David, followed her in triumph.

For David Brewster did not go back home with the others; he wished to find out about an old coal mine which he had been told was in this vicinity. He did not, of course, dream of Eleanor's connection with the place, but he had his own reasons for wishing to discover it.

An hour later the man and the old gypsy woman were startled by another visitor. David crept into the opening in the side of the hill. When he left, the man and woman in the mine had promised the lad to leave the countryside as soon as possible. They had also agreed to return to David the silver and the greater part of the money stolen from the Preston house on the night of the corn roast. It remained for David to see that the stolen goods were returned to the house without suspicion falling on any one. David believed that he could save the evil-doers from disgrace and detection. But how was he to save himself?

CHAPTER XVI

THE BETTER MAN

"Eleanor, dear, do you know who the two Indian Chiefs were who appeared so mysteriously at our 'Feast of Mondamin'? They followed Lillian and me about all evening and wouldn't take off their masks."

Eleanor was propped up in a big, four-post mahogany bed with half a dozen pillows under her lame shoulder. One arm and shoulder were tightly bandaged. Eleanor had had a serious time since her accident. For rheumatism, caused by her exposure to the rain, had set in in the strained shoulder. She was now much better, though still feeling a good deal used up, and she found it very difficult to move.

Eleanor turned her head and smiled languidly at the excited Madge.

"Of course I don't know who the Indians were. Dear me, I had forgotten all about them. I suppose they must have been Mrs. Preston's and Miss Betsey's burglars. Has any one caught them?" Eleanor was getting interested.

"I should say not," giggled Madge cheerfully. "Those Indian braves were no other persons than our highly respected friends, Mr. Tom Curtis and Mr. George Robinson! The sillies came all the way here just to be present at the corn roast, and then rushed off without telling us who they were. Tom was awfully cross because I never mentioned their appearance at the feast in any of my first letters. But I forgot all about them, there has been so much else going on. Only in my last letter I just happened to say that Mr. Preston had never been able to find out anything about his burglars, and that the two men dressed as Indians, whom Mr. Preston had always suspected, had disappeared."

Eleanor laughed. "Of course Tom had to 'fess up' after that, didn't he?

Tom would so hate to do anything that might arouse suspicion. I think Tom Curtis is the most honorable boy I ever knew. Don't you?" asked Eleanor.

"Of course I do," answered Madge emphatically. "By the way, Tom and George will be back in a short time now with the motor launch. As soon as you are well enough we shall probably start off again, though our holiday time is almost over. You and I have distinguished ourselves by getting lost on this houseboat trip, haven't we, Nellie, dear? Only it is the old story. It was my fault that I got into trouble, while yours was only an accident, you poor thing!" Madge patted Eleanor's hand softly.

The bedroom door now opened to admit Phyllis and Lillian. Phil carried a large dish of ginger cookies, hot from the oven, and Lillian a platter heaped with a pile of snowy popcorn. Both girls planted themselves on the side of Eleanor's bed.

"Phil, I thought you and Lillian promised to go walking with Harry Sears and Jack Bolling," protested Madge. "I was to take care of Nellie this afternoon while Miss Jenny Ann and Miss Betsey drove with Mrs. Preston to look at the 'ha'nted house' we have talked so much about."

Lillian shook her golden head calmly. "Did not want to go walking," she remarked calmly. "Phil and I broke our engagements. We decided that we would much rather stay with you and Nellie." She smiled and gave Eleanor a hug. "Cook is going to send up a big pitcher of lemonade in a few minutes. Who wouldn't rather stay at home than go walking with two tiresome boys on an afternoon like this?"

"You girls are terribly good and unselfish about me," exclaimed Eleanor.

"It's worth being ill, and having a sprained shoulder, and being rescued by an old gypsy woman and a strange looking man to----" Eleanor stopped short. Her face flushed painfully and her eyes filled with tears. "Oh!"

she exclaimed, "I'm so sorry I have broken my word. I promised not to tell. Please, please, don't anybody ask me any questions, for I can't answer them even to please you girls."

Lillian looked mystified and extremely curious. Phyllis and Madge gazed at each other blankly. Neither of them spoke, but they were both concerned with the same question. Could it be possible that Nellie had also run across the old gypsy woman and the man who had held Madge a prisoner until Phil and David had rescued her? But then, Eleanor had been found several miles from the spot where the two old people were in hiding when Madge ran across them.

The little captain made up her mind to one thing; she would not trouble Eleanor with questions. But she would ask David if he thought his mysterious acquaintances were still in the neighborhood. Neither she nor Phil had ever spoken of them, though they had never ceased to wonder at David's knowing such peculiar people.

"Is David Brewster going for a walk with Jack and Harry?" inquired Madge casually.

Lillian shook her head. "Of course not," she replied. "David is going off on his usual secret mission. He goes on one every single afternoon!"

"It doesn't concern any one but him, does it?"

Lillian shrugged her shoulders. "I am certainly not in the least interested," she answered disdainfully. "I think he is the rudest person I ever met."

Unfortunately, there were other members of the boat party who were much concerned with David's peculiar behavior. Harry Sears and Jack Bolling were rather bored with their stay on the Preston farm since Eleanor's accident. The girls devoted all their time to nursing Eleanor; they could rarely be persuaded to take a walk or a drive, or to stir up a lark of any kind. Neither Harry nor Jack, who were from the city, felt the least interest in the farm work. David spent every morning in the fields with Mr. Preston. So Harry and Jack, having nothing else to think about, began to worry and pry into David's actions. It was strange that the boy went away every afternoon and never told any one where he was going, nor spoke afterward of what he had done or where he had been!

Jack Bolling did not really care a great deal about Brewster's affairs, but Harry Sears was a regular "Paul Pry." He had made up his mind to find out what Brewster was "after" on these afternoons when he "sneaked" off and hid himself.

Just before Jack and Harry started on their walk David Brewster came out on the side porch of the Preston house with his coat pockets bulging with flat, hard packages. He had his hat pulled down over his eyes, and was hurrying off without looking either to the right or left, when Harry Sears called out: "Where are you off to, Brewster? If you are going for a walk, Bolling and I would like to go with you. We are looking for something to do."

David turned red. It was unexpected friendliness for Harry Sears to suggest coming for a walk with him. Harry usually never noticed David at all, except to order him about at every possible opportunity.

But David was resolute. He particularly needed to be alone on this afternoon. Besides his usual occupation, he must make up his mind how he could go about restoring to the Prestons and Miss Taylor their stolen property.

"I'm off on personal business, Mr. Sears," he returned politely. "I can't let any one else come along."

"Well, you are a nice, sociable person, Brewster," sneered Harry. "Sorry to have intruded. I might have known better."

David swung out of the yard without answering. It never occurred to him to glance back to see what Sears and Bolling were doing.

"Let's go after the fellow, Bolling," proposed Harry. "We have nothing else to do this afternoon. It would be rather good fun to find out what knavery the chap is up to and to show him off before the girls. I actually believe that Madge Morton and Phyllis Alden like the common fellow. Maybe they think Brewster is a kind of hero; he is so silent, dark and sullen, like the hero chap in a weepy sort of play."

Jack Bolling hesitated. "I don't think it is square of us to spy on Brewster, no matter what he is doing," he argued.

"I _do_," returned Harry briefly. "If he isn't up to something he has no business doing, what harm is there in our chancing to run across him--quite by accident, of course? If he is up to some deviltry, it is our business to find it out."

David had turned a corner in the road and had jumped over a low stone fence into a field when the other two young men started after him.

Harry soon espied David, and he and Jack tramped after him cautiously, always keeping at a safe distance.

But David Brewster was wholly unaware that he was being followed. He hurried from one field to another until he came to a meadow that had been left uncultivated for a number of years. It was uneven, running into little hills and valleys, with big rocks jutting out of the earth.

One of these rocks formed a complete screen. David walked straight toward this spot as though he were accustomed to going to it. He lay down on the gra.s.s under the rock. On his way to his retreat he had made up his mind how he should try to return the stolen goods to the rightful owners, so there was nothing to keep him from his regular occupation.

David pulled out of his pocket one of the small, flat objects that he carried and almost completely concealed it with his body as he leaned over it.

A few minutes later Harry Sears crept up on tip-toe from the back of the rock. Jack Bolling was considerably farther off. He meant to give David some warning of his presence before he approached him.

Harry Sears lay down flat on top of the rock. He made a sudden dive toward David, grabbing at the object that David held in his hand.

"What have you there?" he demanded. "Out with it! You've got to tell what you do every afternoon, hiding off by yourself."

David Brewster sprang to his feet, his face white with pa.s.sion. He thrust the object that Harry coveted back into his pocket.