CHAPTER IX THE TRIALS OF AN EXPLORER
"Oh, tell me again about the time you went camping, and the peoplethought you were drowning," begged Sylvia.
Hinpoha drew up a footstool under her feet, and sank back into acushioned chair with a long sigh of contentment. All day long she hadbeen helping the others search for the secret passage, upstairs anddownstairs, and back upstairs again, until she dropped, panting andexhausted, into a chair beside Sylvia in the library and declared shecouldn't stand up another minute. The others never thought of stopping.
"But you aren't fat," she retorted when Sahwah protested against herdropping out. "You can run up and downstairs like a spider; no wonder youaren't tired. I'm completely inside."
"You're what?"
"Completely inside. Classical English for 'all in.' 'All in' is slang,and we can't use slang in Nyoda's house, you know."
Sahwah snorted and returned to the search, which was now centered inUncle Jasper's study.
"Now tell me about your getting rescued," said Sylvia.
"We were spending the week-end at Sylvan Lake," recounted Hinpoha, "andthere were campers all around. Sahwah and I wanted to get an honor forupsetting a canoe and righting it again, so we put on our skirts andmiddies over our bathing suits and paddled out into deep water. Nyoda waswatching us from the shore. We were going to take the completetest--upset the canoe, undress in deep water, right the canoe and paddleback to shore. We got out where the water was over our heads and upsetthe canoe with a fine splash. We were just coming up and beginning topull off our middies, when we heard a yell from the shore. Two young menfrom one of the cottages were tearing down to the beach like mad,throwing their coats into space as they ran.
"'Hold on, girls, we'll save you,' they shouted across the water, andjumped in and swam out toward us.
"'O look what's coming!' giggled Sahwah.
"'Oh, won't they be surprised when they see us right the canoe!' Isputtered as well as I could for laughing. 'Come on, hurry up!'
"'What a shame to spoil their chance of being heroes,' said Sahwah. 'Theymay never have another chance. Let's let them tow us in.' Sahwah wentdown under water and did dead man's float and it looked as though she hadgone under. I followed her. But I laughed right out loud under water andmade the bubbles go up in a spout and had to go up for air. The twofellows were almost up to us. Sahwah threw up her hand and waved itwildly, and I began to laugh again.
"'Keep still and be saved like a lady!' Sahwah hissed, and I straightenedout my face just in time. The two fellows took hold of us and towed us toshore. People were lined up all along, watching, and they cheered andmade a big fuss over those two fellows. We could see Nyoda and Migwan andGladys running away with their handkerchiefs stuffed into their mouths.We lay on the beach awhile, looking awfully limp and scared and after awhile we let somebody help us to our cottage, and you should have heardthe hilarity after we were alone! We laughed for two hours withoutstopping. Nyoda insisted that we go and express our grateful thanks tothe two young men for saving our lives, and we managed to keep our facesstraight long enough to do it, but the strain was awful."
"Oh, what fun!" cried Sylvia, laughing until the tears came, and thenwith an irresistible burst of longing she exclaimed, "Oh, if I could onlydo things like other girls!"
"You _are_ going to do things like other girls!" said Hinpoha in the toneof one who knows a delightful secret. "You're going to walk again; Nyodasaid the doctor said so."
Sylvia's face went dead white for an instant, and then lighted up withthat wonderful inner radiance that made her seem like a glowing lamp.
"Am I?" she gasped faintly, catching hold of Hinpoha's arm with tensefingers.
"You certainly are," said Hinpoha, in a convincing tone. "Nyoda said youcould be cured. The specialist is coming in a day or two to arrange theoperation. O dear, now I've told it!" she exclaimed. "We were going tosave it for a birthday surprise."
"Oh-h-h-h!" breathed Sylvia, and sank back in her chair unable to sayanother word. Her eyes burned like stars. To walk again! Not to be aburden to Aunt Aggie! The sudden joy that surged through her nearlysuffocated her. To walk! Perhaps to dance! The desire to dance had alwaysbeen so strong in her that it sometimes seemed to her that she must dieif she couldn't dance. All the joy that was coming to her whirled beforeher eyes in a wild kaleidoscope of shifting images.
"Then I can be a Camp Fire Girl!"
"You're going to be a Winnebago!"
"Oh-h-h!"
"You can go camping with us!"
"Oh-h-h!"
"You will be a singer, and go on the stage, maybe!"
"Oh-h-h-h-h-h!"
"Maybe you'll even----" Hinpoha's sentence was suddenly interrupted by amighty uproar from the basement. First came a crash that rocked thehouse, followed by a series of lesser thumps and crashes, mingled withthe racket of breaking glass. The Winnebagos, rushing out into the hallfrom Uncle Jasper's study, were brushed aside by Sherry and Justice andthe Captain, tearing down the attic stairs. Sherry snatched up hisrevolver from his dresser and went down the stairs three at a time, withthe boys close at his heels.
"The burglars are in the basement!" came from the frightened lips of thegirls as they crept fearfully down the stairs. All felt that the mysteryof the footprints on the stairs was about to be cleared up.
Sherry opened the cellar door and paused at the top. "Who's down there?"he called, in a voice of thunder.
From somewhere below came a dismal wail. "Throw me a plank, somebody, I'mdrowning. There's a tidal wave down here!"
"It's Slim!" cried Nyoda, recognizing his voice. "What's the matter?" shecalled.
She and Sherry raced down the cellar stairs, with the Winnebagos and thetwo boys streaming after.
They found Slim lying on the floor of the fruit cellar, nearly drowned ina pool of vinegar which was gushing over him from the wreck of atwo-hundred-gallon barrel lying beside him. Around him and on top of himlay the debris of a shelf of canned fruit.
Sherry and the boys rescued him and finally succeeded in convincing himthat he was not fatally injured. The stream of vinegar was diverted intoa nearby drain, and Slim told his tale of woe.
He had been down in the cellar looking for the secret passage. There wasa place in the stone wall that sounded hollow when he struck it with ahammer, and he went around to see what was on the other side of thatwall. It was the fruit cellar. While he was poking around in it a bigstone suddenly fell down out of the wall and smashed in the head of thebarrel, which tipped over almost on top of him, and nearly drowned him invinegar, while the jars of fruit came down all around him.
"That loose stone in the wall!" exclaimed Sherry. "I forgot to warn youboys about it when you were sounding the walls with hammers. It's amighty good thing it fell on the barrel and not on you."
He and Nyoda turned cold at the thought of what might have happened.
But the sight of Slim, dripping with vinegar and covered with cannedpeaches, drove all thoughts of tragedy out of their minds, and the cellarresounded with peals of helpless laughter for the next twenty minutes.Justice tried to sweep up the broken glass, but sank weakly into a bin ofpotatoes and went from one convulsion into another, until the Captainfinally poured a dipper of water over him to calm him down.
"O dear," gasped Justice, mopping his face with the end of a potato bag,"if Uncle Jasper could only have seen what he started with that diary ofhis, it would have jolted him clean out of his melancholy!"