"Well, what else can I do?" asked Nan quietly. "If I go to the captain and tell him I found a couple of men standing in front of my door and that I want them arrested, he will think that I'm crazy."

"But they had a key! They were trying to get in! We saw them!" insisted Bess, pacing excitedly up and down the small stateroom.

"I know we did," said Nan patiently. "But the captain could never arrest the men on such evidence. He would want proof. And you know as well as I do that we haven't any."

"We-el," said Bess irresolutely, sitting down on the edge of the berth and staring blackly at the opposite wall, "I suppose you are right, Nan Sherwood. You usually are. But I do know one thing." She stirred impatiently and mechanically straightened her pretty white hat. "And that is that I won't enjoy myself one bit till we make those men stop following us around and trying to get into our room with skeleton keys.

I suppose that is what he had. Oh, dear, it does seem as if something were always happening to take the joy out of life!"

Nan ventured a shaky little laugh at this and began automatically picking up her things and stuffing them into her bag.

"You had better get ready, Bess," she advised. "We shall reach Jacksonville in a little while. We don't want to be left behind."

"I should say not!" said Bess vehemently. "I wouldn't stay on this old boat another night after what happened this morning--not for anything. I hope," she added, as she slammed her brush into her suitcase, "that we sha'n't see any more of those horrid men after we once get on sh.o.r.e."

"I hope we sha'n't." Nan echoed the wish fervently, but in her heart she was very sure that they had not seen the last of the tall, thin man and his chubby companion.

That they were after the papers that had been entrusted to her care by poor, confiding Sarah Bragley, she had little doubt. And the fact that whoever these men were, they were desperately anxious to recover the papers showing the widow's t.i.tle to the tract of land in Florida, fostered Nan's belief that the property must be of considerable value and automatically strengthened her determination to hold on to the papers at all cost.

She was so engrossed with her own thoughts that Bess had to speak to her twice before she could bring her back to a realization of the present.

"Hurry up," she cried, handing Nan her suitcase and fairly pushing her out on the deck. "From the noise everybody is making, I guess we're there. For goodness' sake, Nan!" she exclaimed as her chum switched her suitcase from one hand to the other, so that it would be between Bess and herself, "don't b.u.mp that bag into me--especially right behind the knees. You are apt to make me sit down suddenly."

"You couldn't. There's too much of a crowd," laughed Nan, then added in a lower tone, while her eyes nervously searched the crowd about her: "Please help me to look out for my bag, honey. I'm awfully afraid I might lose it."

CHAPTER XX

THOSE MEN AGAIN

The two girls saw nothing more of the men who had played such a mysterious part in their trip, and before they had started, with hundreds of other gaily dressed people, down the gangplank of the _Dorian_ they had almost forgotten their strange adventure.

Nor, under the circ.u.mstances, could this be wondered at. All about them was the bustle and excitement that is always attendant upon going ash.o.r.e.

Every one was in hilarious holiday mood, and Nan and Bess would have been queer indeed if they had not entered into the spirit of the day with all their hearts.

"I just can't keep my feet still," Bess confided to her chum, as they filed slowly down the gangplank. "Isn't this the most wonderful day you ever saw in your life, Nan? Just think, this kind of weather in _February_! It does me good," she added, her eyes sparkling, "to think of all the other girls at home going around with furs on and thick coats and complaining of the cold. Oh, how I wish I could see them now."

"Elizabeth! what a mean disposition," said Nan demurely, adding with a twinkle in her eyes, while she tried hard to keep her feet from fox-trotting away with her down the gangplank: "Though I would like to send a little note to Linda and tell her to be careful not to go out in the cold. It might make her nose red. Oh, Bess, look down there!" She leaned forward suddenly, her eyes shining with eagerness. "Isn't that Grace? And Walter----"

"And Rhoda! Yes, it is, and they are waving to us," cried Bess eagerly.

"Of course Grace and Walter said they would be here to meet us, but I was afraid they never would find us in all this crowd."

Someway the girls got down to the dock, were hugged by Grace and Rhoda, greeted hilariously by Walter, and were hustled, out of breath, through the crowd that thronged about them.

"How in the world did you get here, Rhoda?" demanded Nan, when she could get a chance to ask the question.

"I thought I'd surprise you," declared the girl from Rose Ranch. "I fixed it all up with Grace and told her not to say a word."

"It's grand!" declared Nan, beaming.

"The best ever," added Bess. "Oh, what grand times we girls are going to have!"

"Sure we are going to have a grand time," said the girl from Rose Ranch. "I think I deserve it, after all the trouble I've been through."

"What do you suppose, she was in a railroad wreck," burst out Grace. "A real, live-to-goodness wreck, too."

"Oh, Rhoda, were you injured?" cried Nan quickly.

"Just a few scratches--on my left elbow and my shins. But it was a close call, I can tell you."

"Where was it?" asked Bess.

"Out in Connecticut. I went there to visit a distant relative of my dad.

It was a little side line and our train ran into a freight. We knocked open a car full of chickens and what do you think? Those chickens scattered far and wide. I'll bet many a family is having chicken dinner on the sly this week!"

"Then n.o.body was hurt?"

"Oh, yes, several were more or less bruised and one man had an arm broken. But everybody was thankful, for they said it might have been much worse. But it certainly was funny to see those chickens scattering in every direction over the snow-covered fields," and Rhoda laughed at the recollection.

"Gee, if a fellow had been there with a gun he might have had some hunting," cried Walter.

"Oh, Walter, you wouldn't hunt chickens with a gun, would you?" asked Nan, reproachfully.

"Don't know as I would," was the quick reply.

"Oh, but now we are together, won't we have lovely times," cried Bess.

"The very best ever," echoed Nan.

"Going to let me out?" demanded Walter.

"No, indeed, Walter, you are included."

The girls and Walter continued to compare notes, when all of a sudden Rhoda uttered a cry.

"Girls, am I seeing a ghost?" she asked, staring straight ahead of her toward a group of richly dressed people who were talking and laughing together. "Or is that Linda Riggs?"

"Goodness, don't say it, Rhoda!" cried Bess in dismay. "It can't be Linda!"

But it was! For at that moment the youngest of the much over-dressed women in the group turned with a laugh to speak to someone behind her, and the girls found themselves face to face with their schoolgirl enemy, Linda Riggs.

For all their dislike of the girl, the chums would have spoken to her.

But Linda stared at them coolly for a second, and then deliberately turned her back upon them and began to speak to a tall, gray-haired man at her right, who the girls instinctively felt must be her father, the railroad president.

"Those young ladies seemed to know you, my dear," they heard the tall man say to Linda, as, flushed and indignant, the girls and Walter pressed on through the crowd.