CHAPTER XVIII
ANXIOUS DAYS
"Come on, boys!" cried Allen, evidently the first to sense the meaningof the alarm.
"Oh, but shouldn't we have some sort of weapons, you know?" spoke Percy.
"Get out of my way!" cried Roy Anderson, brushing past the dude. "Myfists are the only weapons I want."
Betty and the other girls hung back in a frightened group. The maid'svoice continued to ring out, and now Mrs. Nelson could be hearddemanding to know what was the matter.
"Around to the side, fellows!" commanded Allen. "There's an outer doorthey'll probably try for."
"But who'll guard the front here?" asked Amy's brother.
"Let Percy do that!" Allen flung back over his shoulder. "He probablywon't come with us, anyhow," he added.
The three young men hastened around to the side of the cottage, whilePercy, hardly knowing what to do, remained with the girls in front. Atthe side was an old-fashioned, slanting cellar door, the kind celebratedin song as the one down which children slide, to the no small damage oftheir clothes.
As Allen and his chums reached a point where they could view this door,they saw it suddenly flung up with a bang, and three men spring up thestone steps.
"There they are!" yelled Roy.
"After 'em!" shouted Henry Blackford.
"It wasn't a false alarm, anyhow," added Allen. "Hold on there!" hecried. "Stop! Who are you? What do you want? Stop!"
But neither the commands nor the questions halted the men. They ran on,with never a word of answer or defiance flung back--dogged shadowsfleeing through the moonlight to the shrubbery-encompassed grounds ofEdgemere.
"Stop, or I'll shoot!" cried Roy.
"Oh!" screamed Grace, covering her ears.
"Good bluff, all right," complimented Allen. "But it won't work."
Nor did it. Roy's bright idea went for naught, for the men still crashedon. They were lost sight of now behind a screen of bushes, but the boyswere not going to give up the pursuit so easily.
"Come on!" called Allen. "We'll have them in another minute! They can'tget over the stone wall."
"Stone wall?" echoed Henry.
"Sush! It was another bluff, just as my threat was to shoot," cautionedRoy. "It may turn them back."
But it did not. Evidently the men knew the grounds about Edgemere aswell as did the boys, for there was no sign of a halt in their headlongpace. On they crashed through bushes and underbrush, dodging among thetrees of the garden, and minding not the flower beds they trampled underfoot.
"They're getting away from us," remarked Henry, who was panting alongbeside Allen.
"Yes, they evidently had a line of retreat all marked out."
"Who are they?"
"Haven't the least idea. Tramps, maybe--maybe something worse."
"You mean----"
"I don't know just what I do mean," replied Allen. "Come on, let's do alittle sprint, and we may get them. If we don't they'll soon be down onthe beach, and it will be all up with the chase if they have a boat, asthey probably have."
"If it was on the ocean side we'd have some chance; the surf is heavyto-night."
"Yes, but they're running toward the bay."
As I have explained, Edgemere was built on a point of land. One side ofthe house fronted the ocean, and the other the bay. At this point theland was not above a thousand feet wide, and the cottage propertyextended from shore line to shore line.
As Allen had said, the intruders, coming from the cellar, had turnedtoward the bay side, and if they had a boat waiting for them in thosequiet waters they would have no difficulty in pushing off. But if theyhad gone the other way the unusually heavy surf would have held themback, at least for a time.
"There they go!" cried Roy, breaking out through the last fringe ofbushes.
"And in a motor boat, too!" added Roy.
"If we only had ours," Henry mourned.
But it was vain wishing. The _Pocohontas_ was docked some distance away,and by the time the boys could reach her, and start an engine that wasnever noted for going without considerable "tinkering," it would be toolate.
For the men had luck on their side. They fairly tumbled into a swiftlooking craft that was near shore, in charge of some one evidentlywaiting for them. In another instant the chug of the motor told that ithad started. Then the boys had the dissatisfaction of standing on thesand, panting after their run, and seeing the men gradually draw outinto the bay.
The sky had clouded over and the moon, that might have been a help, wasnot now of any service.
"Well, there they go," said Allen, in exasperated tones. "I'd give agood deal to know who they were, and what they were after."
"Let's go back to the house and see if we can find out," suggested Roy."The fuss started there, you know."
"In the cellar--where the diamonds are," added Henry.
"That's so!" cried Allen. "For the moment I had forgotten them! Come onback. Maybe the rascals got the stones!"
The boys went back the same route they had so recently and so uselesslytraveled. As they neared the cottage a voice hailed them.
"I say. Hold on! Who are you? What do you want? Remember there areladies here!"
"It's Percy!" gasped Allen, trying not to laugh. "He's acting as homeguard!"
"I wonder if he has his wrist watch on," laughed Roy.
"It's all right," called Henry, not wishing his sister and the othergirls to be needlessly frightened. "We're coming back."
"Did you get them?" asked Betty, from the darkness.
"No, they got away in a boat," answered Allen. "Is anyone hurt?"
"No, but the servants and mother are quite frightened. Could you see whothey were?"
"No. Evidently tramps, or fishermen. We'll have to have a look atthose----"
Allen did not complete the sentence, but they all knew to what hereferred.
"So you--er--missed them?" questioned Percy, when the two groups weretogether again. "Too bad! I was just coming to join you. I had to have aweapon, you know, and I found--this."
He showed a little stick which he had picked up.
"I should have hit them with it had I gotten near enough," he went on,seriously--for him.
"It's a good thing you didn't," spoke Roy. "You might have killed one ofthem with that, Percy."
"Oh, so I should! I--I can strike very hard when I am angry. I am justas well pleased that there was no need for desperate measures. I reallyam!"
But no one paid any attention to him now, though he tried to walk besideBetty. Allen and Roy had taken this vantage place, one on either side ofthe Little Captain.
"Betty, where are you?" called Mrs. Nelson, from the darkness.
"Here, Mother. Don't worry. It's all right. The men got away in a boat.We are coming in to hear all about it."
The story was soon told.
One of the maids, going down cellar to get something from the foodstore-room, had surprised a man prowling about with an electricflashlight.
The girl screamed, and her cries were augmented by the yells of anotherdomestic in the kitchen.
Then the first girl saw two other men come from some part of the cellarand join the first one. They ran out just as the boys came up, and thefruitless chase resulted.
"What sort of men were they?" asked Betty of the girl who had given thealarm.
"Oh, I don't know, Miss Betty," was the half-sobbed reply.
"But you must know! Did he wear a tall hat or----"
"A tall hat? Of course not, miss. He was like a tramp, or afisherman--maybe a clammer."
"That's how I sized them up," Allen said. "Fishermen. Did they sayanything to you?" he asked the maid.
"Not a thing--no, sir. He just caught his breath, sort of frightenedlike, and ran out."
"Did the one you saw call to the others?"
"Oh, no, sir, they all ran out at once, as soon as I went down. I had alight myself."
"What part of the cellar were they in?"
"I couldn't
exactly say. They seemed to be all over."
"Well, we'll have a look for--to see if anything is missing," Allenhastily changed his remarks, for the servants knew nothing about thediamonds; or, at least, they were not supposed to know about them.
"Come on, boys," the young law student went on.
"Oh, but hadn't we better send for the authorities?" asked Percy. "Or atleast take a weapon," for Allen and the others had nothing in theirhands.
"He's loony on the subject of weapons," grunted Roy.
Allen led the way down cellar, the girls and the servants not venturing,though Betty did want to go. But her mother kept her back.
A glance served to show that the diamonds were in the box, safe. As faras could be learned the intruders had not been near them.
"We'll bring them up, after the servants have gone to bed," Allenconfided to his chums.
And when the maids had retired there was a sort of "council of war"among the others.
Opinion was divided as to whether the men were ordinary tramps, orperhaps sneak thieves, or whether they were after the diamonds.
"But how would they know they were down cellar?" asked Betty. "We arethe only ones who know of the hiding place, and we haven't told anyone,except Percy."
"Oh, I never said a word!" Percy cried. Indeed he only heard the storyof the find, after the scare.
"Of course if some men from this neighborhood hid the diamonds in thesand, and knew we girls took them out, and if they were around the houseand heard something of the excitement the night papa took them downcellar, it would explain how they knew where to look for them," Bettysaid.
"Too many ifs," commented Allen. "Have there been any strangers aroundlately--tramps or anyone like that?"
At first Betty said there had been none, but later she recalled that amaid had reported to her that an undesirable specimen of a man hadbegged something to eat at the kitchen door the morning after Mr. Nelsonhad hid the diamonds down cellar.
"And," Betty said, "he may have been hanging around when father and Willleft for Boston that day."
"But how could he know the stones were hidden down cellar?" askedMollie.
"I don't know that he could tell that, exactly," Betty admitted, "but ifyou remember, as papa was going away he called back: 'Be sure to keepthe cellar locked!' Don't you remember?"
"Yes, I heard that," Amy contributed.
"Well, if a tramp, who was not really a tramp, but some one in disguise,heard that he might jump to some conclusion," Betty went on.
"Too much jumping," Allen said. "As a matter of fact we're all in thedark about this."
"And it isn't a very pleasant suspense, either," declared Betty, as shelooked at the black box with the diamonds safe in the secretcompartment. "What are we going to do with that?"
"Hide it in a new place," suggested Henry.
That much was decided on, and the treasure was taken up to the attic,though there the danger of fire was ever present.
"Oh, I wish father were home," said Betty, a worried look on her face.
But it would be several days before Mr. Nelson could return, and thosedays were anxious ones indeed for the outdoor girls. The morning afterthe scare in the cellar inquiries were made, but no trace of themysterious men was found.
"I can't stand this much longer!" declared Betty, one night. "I almostwish we'd never found the diamonds."
"You're nervous," said Mollie. "We've been too much in the house.To-morrow we shall try one of our old stunts--a picnic!"
"Good!" cried Grace. "That will be fun!"