Billie gave them an account of what had happened the evening before. It was exciting enough to tell about and the girls listened breathlessly.

Richard's courage and tact with the outlaws when all the time his sleeve was soaked with blood from the wound in his arm, fired her with unusual eloquence.

"I don't think they intended to harm any of us," she finished. "It was Phoebe they wanted, and her father, who is hiding somewhere on the mountain. But we shall be thankful to him all our lives for what he did.

Why didn't he tell you?"

"It's too like him," said Maggie. "I don't know whether it's modesty or indifference, but he never, never tells stories where he figures as a hero."

"Do you wish us to stop here now after so much excitement?" Amy asked.

"I don't think it's any time for outsiders to intrude in spite of Maggie's rhymes about Gypsy blood and brothers of the road."

"Indeed, we wouldn't think of letting you go," cried Billie hospitably.

"You are not strangers to us, I a.s.sure you, after all your kindness. But I do wish I could find your brother. The place on his arm bled a lot last night. I am certain a wound like that should be washed and dressed every few hours. Do you think he could have gone very far away?"

"Oh, dear," exclaimed Maggie. "Richard is incorrigible. He does make me so uneasy sometimes."

"There is nothing to do but wait patiently until the spirit moves him to come back," put in Amy calmly. "He is so strong and well that perhaps his wounds don't have to be dressed as often as other people's. There seems to be a special Providence that looks after him anyhow. It would be foolish to worry."

Nevertheless, Billie did worry considerably in her heart, and even Phoebe, who presently joined them and was introduced to the girls, looked startled and uneasy when she heard that Richard Hook, her deliverer, had gone away without having his wound dressed.

The caravanners were greatly interested in seeing Phoebe, whose history they had heard.

"She is very beautiful," Amy observed, "but she doesn't look human, somehow. She has the expression of a person who sees visions, air pictures invisible to other people."

"She is very religious," Billie replied. "Not like the religious people we know, but--well like people in the time of Christ might have been.

You see she got it all herself without any outside teaching. She just learned it out of the New Testament mostly, and she practices it all the time. It's part of her life. Sometimes, I think it would be a pity to interfere with it."

"How can you interfere with it, Billie?" asked Nancy.

"By taking her back to wicked West Haven with all its temptations,"

laughed Billie.

"But shall you?" they asked in a chorus.

"We can't leave her in this wild place."

"And her father?" put in Mary.

"You'll have to ask Dr. Hume about that," answered Billie, and not another word would she say on the subject.

That morning the "Comet" conveyed a load of young people down to the village. Miss Campbell ordered a telegram to be sent to her cousin, demanding his immediate presence at the camp. Also a carpenter was secured to build a new door for the living room. This time the village street was singularly empty. No faces peeped from the half opened doors and no crowd gathered at the town pump. The rickety old wooden hotel was closed and the blinds drawn at every window. Evidently Richard Hook had frightened Lupo and the innkeeper very effectually.

"I don't think they will ever trouble us again, Phoebe," Billie remarked as they circled the pump and started home.

"They are sorry," said Phoebe compa.s.sionately. "They are like children, and Mr. Hook understood that when he spoke to them as children. He is very wonderful and very good."

"He is indeed," agreed Billie. "He is a very remarkable young man."

Phoebe seemed about to speak again, but kept silent. It was difficult for her to carry on a conversation.

"I love him," she said at last, so simply and innocently that Billie smiled in spite of the earnestness of Phoebe's expression.

"You love everyone, do you not, Phoebe? It is what you have learned by yourself up here in the mountain."

"I cannot do that," answered Phoebe. "I have tried but I cannot. But I love Mr. Hook. May G.o.d protect him always and reward him for his kindness."

Billie looked away abashed. She had never heard anyone speak like that before outside of a church. She, too, hoped that G.o.d would protect Richard, but she would not have said it for worlds. She hoped also that Richard would be waiting for them at Sunrise Camp when they returned. He was not there, however. Miss Campbell, with Nancy and Percy, had looked for him in vain.

"No, he has not come back," said the little lady. "And neither has Dr.

Hume. Where is that foolish man? He shouldn't have left us without news all this time."

"Richard should remember that he is a guest and not an independent traveler," exclaimed Maggie Hook. "I don't think he has any right to go off and stay like this."

"Now, Maggie, you are worrying and it's very foolish," put in practical Amy Swinnerton. "You know perfectly well he'll be back by nightfall."

n.o.body felt quite in the humor to do anything. The day was exceedingly hot and the sun on its downward course in the heavens was like a red ball. Most of the party scattered for naps and letter writing and did not meet again until sunset.

That afternoon as they gathered around the supper table, Alberdina brought a note to Miss Campbell, written in a strange, old-fashioned handwriting on a sc.r.a.p of paper. It read:

"Do not be uneasy. I have gone in search of Mr. Hook. Phoebe."

Miss Campbell groaned as she read the message aloud.

"Really, Billie," she exclaimed reproachfully, "you and your father between you induced me to come to this place for peace and rest----"

Billie's eyes filled with tears.

"Never mind, child," added the distracted lady. "It's not your fault."

"It all came about," remarked Mary, who was fond of tracing things to their beginnings, "because Billie bought a pail of blackberries from Phoebe one morning and Mrs. Lupo was angry."

This might be considered an interesting and perfectly true statement, but n.o.body heard it, because they were busy organizing a search party. A few moments later Billie and Ben went down to the village in the motor car for guides, and this time guides were forthcoming.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE MILLS OF G.o.d.

It was not often that Billie lost a night's rest from anxiety, but that night her eyes refused to close and she lay staring into the darkness, straining her ears for sounds in the forest. Even Richard's sister, Maggie, was not so abjectly miserable as Billie. She tried to explain to herself that it was all because she had been the one to shoot the young man in the arm.

"I'd much rather have shot that horrid Lupo," she sobbed under her breath. "Suppose I've killed Richard? The wound may be much worse than we thought it was." She wiped her eyes on the sheet and lay very still listening. Away off on the mountain somewhere a dog began to howl. The weird sound made her shiver and hide her face in the pillow.

"Oh, G.o.d protect him," she whispered, and then blushed furiously. "I suppose I have a perfect right to pray for a friend?" she thought in reply to some unspoken thought.

Besides the anxiety she felt, all sorts of new and unusual sensations were disturbing her peace of mind that wakeful night. She experienced a kind of irritation against Phoebe, which she could not explain to herself.