CHAPTER XXV
JOY
What happened in the next hour the girls never afterward clearlyremembered. In what seemed a nightmare, they found their clothes, and,after turning things wrong side out, getting the left shoe on the rightfoot, and various other mishaps calculated to wreck the mostwell-balanced nervous system, they finally succeeded in getting them on.
"Where shall we go?" Mollie gasped out, as, clad in oilskins, theyrushed madly down the stairs.
"There's a farmhouse about a mile down the road," explained Grace, "andall the farm hands sleep on the premises. We can get them. And there'sthe life-saving station only a little way beyond. They may have seen thesignals and be on their way already."
"All right--let's go," said Betty grimly, as she flung open the door.
A terrific gust of wind greeted her and sent her staggering back uponthe other girls.
"It's even worse than I thought," she gasped, regaining her balance. "Wewill have to do some fighting to get there, girls."
"A mile against that wind!" groaned Grace. "Betty, I don't think we canever make it."
"We've got to--or at least make the attempt," cried Betty, pulling hercoat more tightly about her. "If nobody else will come, I'm goingalone," she added, and the girls knew her well enough to be sure shemeant it.
"Come on," cried Mollie, who had never yet been known to ignore achallenge. "We'll do our best, anyway, even if we die trying."
"Bravo! Spoken like an Outdoor Girl!" cried Betty, and at the challengein her voice, Grace and Amy instinctively straightened up.
"We're all Outdoor Girls," said Grace stoutly.
"And we'll show you," Amy added, with a ring in her voice, "that we arenot afraid to go any where that you can go."
"Fine!" cried the Little Captain, her eyes shining. "Come on, then. Whatchance has a pesky old wind against four Outdoor Girls, I'd like toknow!"
She opened the door again, and this time, being prepared for theonslaught of the wind, merely gritted her teeth and ducked her head andplunged gamely into it. And without a minute's hesitation, the others,who were "also Outdoor Girls," followed her.
The fight with the wind that followed was all they had expected it wouldbe--and more. Their clothes were whipped about their legs as if about todisengage themselves and fly away from their owners forever. And severaltimes they were forced to stop and turn their backs to catch theirbreath and gather strength to go on.
But on they did go until the welcome vision of a gaunt old farmhouserising ghostily from the early morning mist rewarded them and set theirhearts to beating high with hope.
As they fought their way step by step up to the porch, they tried tocall out, but found that whatever sound they were able to make wasdrowned in the roar of the wind.
They found an old-fashioned knocker on the big front door, and worked itwith all their strength. After what seemed to them an age of waiting,the door itself opened and a head popped out at them.
"Well, what in time--" the owner of the voice was beginning, when Bettypushed impatiently past him, the girls following close behind her.
It took a surprisingly short time--seeing that the girls all insistedupon talking at once--to make the farmer understand the situation.
"We're going on to the life-saving station," Betty told him, tremblingwith excitement.
"All right, but my boys'll beat 'em to it," he promised, a glint in hisgrey eyes.
Then the girls were on their way again, pushing desperately against awind that seemed to rise higher and higher with every minute, while inthe east the greying sky grew light.
"A--clear--day!" Mollie gasped, pushing back the wind-blown hair fromher face. "At last!"
"Do you hear anything?" Betty shouted back. "It seems to me I--"
They listened, and then, above the wind, it came to themunmistakably--the sound of voices, masculine voices.
"The life-savers!" gasped Grace. "We don't have to go any farther.Let's--let's--wait for them."
They had not long to wait, for almost before Grace had finished speakinghalf a dozen men carrying life-saving paraphernalia broke through theunderbrush and came running down the path toward them.
They stopped at sight of the panting girls, but Betty waved them onimpatiently.
"The wreck!" she cried. "We came for you! Hurry!" and without anotherword the men hurried on, leaving the girls to follow them more slowly.
However, they accomplished the return trip in about half the time it hadtaken them to fight their way against the wind, and as the first brightrays of the sun gilded the country side, they found themselves back atthe house, where Mrs. Ford was anxiously awaiting them.
She had some breakfast prepared for them, which they ate standing, thenrushed headlong down to the beach. The life-savers were already busilyat work launching their sturdy boats, and as the girls followed thedirection they were taking out to sea they suddenly saw the wreckedship.
Driven by the hurricane wind, it had been caught on one of thosetreacherous bars so common along this part of the coast. Part of thebottom had been torn away, and if the ship had not been so tightlywedged upon the bar it must certainly have sunk hours before. As it was,the starboard deck stood high in the air while the port side almosttouched the water and was constantly swept by mountainous combers.
The girls shivered as they looked.
"If the waves should wash it loose--" Betty began, then checked herself.The possibility was too horrible to contemplate.
"Look!" cried Mollie, clutching her arm, "They are filling the firstboat. Oh, Betty, they'll certainly be swamped! I can't look!" She turnedaway but the next minute her eyes were fixed strainingly upon the wreckagain.
"They're gone! They're gone!" cried Amy, jumping up and down in herexcitement as the boat sunk in the hollow between two huge combers andwas lost to view. "No, they're not! They're up again," as the boat,looking pathetically tiny in comparison to the vastness of the ocean,rose gallantly on the crest of a big wave and came rushing toward them,reeling from side to side. The next moment they were lost to view again.
"Oh, they'll never make it, they'll never make it," moaned Grace. "Itisn't possible."
But the gallant little boat came on and out fighting its bitter fightwith the elements, till, rising on one last long comber, it sweptmagnificently in and grounded on the shore.
The girls were already racing eagerly toward it, and a few minutes laterwere welcoming the poor bedraggled survivors back to safety. There werenine of them in all, four women, one young girl, three men and a littleboy. The child was sobbing and clung to his mother's skirts, terrified.
Betty drew Grace aside.
"Some one will have to take them up to the house, let them dry out, andgive them something to eat," she whispered. "Will you do that, Grace?"
Grace nodded, and Amy, who had overheard the request, begged to go withher. Mollie and Betty remained behind to watch the rest of the rescuework.
Luckily the ship was a merchant vessel and carried very few passengers,so that the life-savers were confident of saving all those on board.Also the wind was beginning to abate and the sea was becoming lessangry--all of which helped them in their work.
The two girls were standing side by side, eagerly watching the progressof the second boat, when they were startled by a hail from behind andturned to find Grace and Amy flying down toward them.
"Mollie!" Amy gasped, trying to catch her breath while her cheeks flamedwith excitement, "we just heard something we thought you ought to know.You know the woman with the little boy," she hurried on as Mollie wasabout to speak, "well, while she was comforting her own child, shehappened to speak of two other children on board--"
"Who cry a great deal," Grace put in eagerly. "They are in charge of aman who looks like a Spaniard, and they seem to be in mortal terror ofhim--"
"Girls," the word burst through dry lips as Mollie took a step towardthem, "what are you telling me? Oh, I can't bear to hope if--" shegrasped Grace's arm and shook it, not
realizing how she hurt. "Tell me,"she cried, "are they boy and girl--"
"Yes," Grace answered trembling. "I don't know, Mollie, dear, of course,but from her description, those two children sounded an awful lot likethe twins!"
Mollie waited to hear no more, but was off like a whirlwind down thebeach toward the second boat that was just coming in to shore. And whileshe ran she was praying with all her fervent young heart.
"Oh, Lord, give me back those babies!" she cried sobbingly. "If you onlywill I'll never, never, _never_ ask you for anything again as long as Ilive."
Then she saw them!
A big, vicious looking man with black hair and black bushy eyebrows waslifting Dodo--her little Dodo--out of the boat. And while she looked,her heart beating wildly, hardly able to believe the evidence of hereyes, the man stretched out his hand for the boy, who sat crouched inthe back of the boat. Then followed something that made Mollie cry outin rage.
Because the boy hung back in evident terror, the man struck him acrossthe face, and, seizing his hand, jerked him roughly out of the boat.
"Dodo! Paul!" screamed Mollie, racing down toward them, unmindful of wetfeet and sodden clothing. "Babies, it's Mollie! Your own Mollie who--"
But her voice was drowned in a shriek from the twins as they torethemselves loose from the man and flung themselves upon her. She droppedto her knees in the sand and strained them to her, laughing, crying,sobbing out endearments while they clung to her frantically, buryingtheir faces in her neck.
"Don't let wicked man get Dodo!" sobbed the little girl. "He's bad man!He hurt Dodo."
With a cry Mollie jumped to her feet, an arm about each of the twins,and looked about for the man. The passengers who had also come ashore inthe boat stood looking on in bewilderment. But the Spaniard haddisappeared.
"Where did that man go?" cried Mollie frantically. "There he is!" sheadded, as she caught sight of him just approaching the foot of thebluff, evidently bent on flight. "Don't let him get away! He's akidnapper!"
Several of the men were already racing off in pursuit, and as theSpaniard was a heavy man and not over agile, the foremost of them soonovertook him.
He seemed to put up little resistance, evidently realizing that he wastoo heavily out-numbered. He surrendered to the inevitable and contentedhimself with merely glowering.
"Come on," cried Mollie, taking the beloved twins by the hand andstarting back along the beach while the girls joyfully accompanied her,talking and ejaculating all at the same time, no one knowing what theother was saying--nor caring. The wonderful fact was enough for them.
When they scrambled up to the top of the bluff they found the menawaiting them with the sullen captive in their midst.
"What'll we do with him, Miss?" asked one of them respectfully, touchinghis cap to Mollie.
"Do with him?" cried Mollie, regarding the Spaniard with flashing eyes."There isn't anything bad enough to do to him. But for the present,we'll have to be satisfied with locking him up. We have plenty ofevidence," she added, waving that part of it aside with a motion of herhand. "Letters and things, you know. He kidnapped my little brother andsister," indicating the twins, who snuggled close against her andregarded their former captor with terrified eyes, "and then demandedtwenty thousand dollars of my mother for their return."
"Blackmail, eh?" growled one of the men, throwing a scornful look at theSpaniard. "Well, you'll get paid up this time, old boy. Get on there,will you?"
* * * * *
It was many hours later and the dusk was falling softly over the land.The passengers of the wrecked ship had long ago started villageward,there to entrain for the city, leaving two of their number behind.
These two were seated at the head of a long table in the little house atBluff Point, devouring chicken and rice before an audience of admiringand joyful Outdoor Girls. Only Mollie very often could not see them forthe tears that dimmed her eyes.
Quite suddenly Betty stopped in the very middle of a sentence to stareat Mollie.
"Your mother!" she cried. "You forgot to let her know!"
"Oh, no, I didn't," Mollie answered. "I sent a telegram by one of theboys who took that dirty Spaniard to the station. And, oh, girls," sheleaned forward suddenly while the tears overflowed and slowly trickleddown her face, "if she does as I begged her to, she will be hereto-morrow. Darling little mother!"
At the love in her voice the girls felt their own eyes grow wet.
"What a difference!" said Betty softly, looking around the table. "A fewnights ago we were utterly miserable. Now we are wildly happy. We havethe darling twins back again, and our boys 'over there' are safe.Girls," she cried, suddenly springing to her feet and raising her cup onhigh, "let's drink a toast--"
"To what?" they cried, rising with one motion.
"To the time when our boys come home!"
And so, in the midst of their happiness, with the dark clouds rolledaway and the sun shining through, we will once more wave farewell to ourOutdoor Girls.
THE END
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