The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise: or, The Cave in the Mountains

CHAPTER III – TWO STRANGE MEN

“What are you going to do, Jack?” asked Cora.

“Notify the Chelton police, and also the authorities here. They will send out a general alarm better than we can. Now who saw these chaps, and how did they look?”

“Belle saw them.”

“Then, Belle, I’ll have to call on your detective abilities. Describe these villainous characters.”

“I wouldn’t call them particularly villainous looking,” said the tall girl. “In fact we thought for a time it was you two, and – ”

“I see,” interrupted Walter. “Belle, I thank you for your good opinion.”

“Come on, get down to business!” exclaimed Jack Kimball. “I want to know how these fellows looked so I can tell the police. Were they young or old?”

“Two young men,” answered Belle. “They were about your age, Jack.”

“But, unfortunately, they did not have his angelic disposition,” mocked Walter. “Bouquets are coming your way fast, Jack.”

“I’ll dispense with them. Come on now, Belle. Anything else except that they were young?”

Belle thought for a moment. She had had such a momentary glimpse of the two that, really, it was hard to describe them adequately for the purposes of police detection.

“Why not describe the car?” asked Cora. “No matter who is in my machine they haven’t a right to it, and they should be arrested on sight.”

“Good idea!” agreed Jack. “I can describe the car right enough.”

“And give the license numbers,” said Bess.

“Of course. Good girl. Let me have them, Cora.”

They were the only ones in the tea room at this time, and the excitement was only communicated to the help. The waitress showed Jack where the telephone booth was, and while Cora, Walter and the girls explained to the girl cashier at the desk what had happened, Jack got the Chelton police over the telephone and asked them to send out an alarm, and also to be on the lookout for the thieves.

The tea room was in Pepack, the township next to Chelton, and Jack also called up the town hall and notified the authorities there, who promised to do what they could.

“But they may have taken any of half a dozen roads leading out of here,” Walter said. “They must have hurried away.”

“And you didn’t have a glimpse of them?” asked Belle.

“Not a trace,” answered Jack. “We managed to pick up the trail by means of that patch on the tire. Saw it in the dust several times. Then it was lost in the shuffle, as you might say, so we thought it better to come back. I wonder if the people here noticed anything of two strange men hanging about.”

“We’ll ask the cashier,” suggested Cora.

She knew, slightly, the girl who sat at the cash register, for Ye Olde Spinning Wheel was a popular resort for automobile parties.

“Yes, Miss Kimball,” the girl said, “there were two young men in here this morning, though whether they were the ones who took your car I can’t say.”

“How did they look?” asked Jack.

“Well, I don’t know that I can tell you. They were both of medium height, and were smooth shaven – I mean they had no beards or moustaches, though both of them would have been better for a visit to the barber’s.”

“What did they do or say?” asked Walter.

“They came in and each had a plate of cream,” went on the girl. “I didn’t exactly like their looks, for, though we try to run a place that will suit every one, we are a bit particular too. But they didn’t make any fuss, and even tipped the waitress.”

“Then they must be ‘regular fellows,’” said Walter, jokingly.

“‘Scuse me,” broke in the voice of the waitress – the same one who had waited on the girls – “but de dime tip dey gibbed me wasn’t any good.”

“Why not?” asked Jack.

“It was plugged. Look!” and she exhibited it.

“So it is!” exclaimed Cora’s brother. “They weren’t so regular after all.”

“I didn’t see it till after dey’d gone,” the negress went on.

“Perhaps you can describe them for me,” Jack suggested.

It developed that the waitress could give a better word-picture of the two young men than could the cashier, whose attention, naturally, was taken up with her duties at the desk.

Jack noted down the none too good distinguishing marks as described by the waitress, and went to telephone them to the police as an additional help in capturing those who had gone with Cora’s car.

There was nothing more that could be done just then, and Jack was about to suggest that, by means of a little crowding, he could take his sister and her chums back to Chelton in his car when the young woman who had charge of the tea room entered, it being her hour to go on duty.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, as she observed the group of excited young people about the cashier’s desk.

“Two strange young men went off with Miss Kimball’s auto,” was the cashier’s answer, and the circumstances were related.

“Two young men!” exclaimed the manager. “Why I remember those two who had cream in here this morning. They spoke to me as they came out on the porch, and I bought tickets of them.”

“Tickets!” exclaimed Jack. “Tickets?”

“Yes. They seemed all right – I mean respectful and all that. They said they had unexpectedly run out of funds and wanted to know if I wouldn’t buy some railroad tickets they had to New York. I said I hadn’t any use for them, and couldn’t get off to go to New York anyhow, as this was our busy season.”

“So you didn’t buy them?” asked Cora. “But I thought you said – ”

“I didn’t buy the railroad tickets,” said the young lady manager. “But I did purchase two tickets for the opera performance that is to be given at Chelton on Friday night. I’d been wanting to go, and I was going to telephone for tickets when these young men said they had two good ones they’d let me have for less than the regular price.”

“And you took them?” asked Walter.

“Yes. It seemed a bargain, and I am desirous to see the play.”

“Do you mind letting me see the tickets?” asked Jack.

“Certainly you may see them,” was the answer, and from her pocketbook, which she had left in charge of the cashier, the manager took out two slips of blue pasteboard.

“Hum! They seem regular all right,” remarked Jack. “Date and seat numbers all proper. I know where those seats are, too, right in the middle of the first row balcony. I always sit there myself when I go.”

“They said they were good seats,” declared the girl, “and I saved a dollar. They wanted the money they said, for they had spent their last for some ice cream. They seemed to be all right.”

“Maybe they were,” agreed Jack. “Of course it’s perfectly proper for persons who can’t use railroad or theatre tickets they have purchased, to sell them again. And these tickets seem to be the same as those you would get at the box office. And there’s no crime in being without cash. But it is a crime to take an automobile.”

“The only question is whether the same two fellows are involved,” suggested Walter.

“That’s it,” agreed Jack. “I wish you girls had had a better look at those who went off in the machine.”

“It all happened so suddenly,” Belle explained.

“Yes, such things generally do,” remarked Cora. “Well, there’s nothing else to do, is there?”

“I guess not,” said Jack, who had telephoned in the additional description of the young men who had sold the tickets, adding the information that there was only a suspicion that they were the same two who were responsible for the taking of the car.

“If they had only kept the theatre tickets, instead of selling them,” said Walter, “we’d have a good chance of arresting them.”

“How?” Belle demanded.

“By watching those two seats. As soon as the fellows came in to take their places we could have an officer arrest them.”

“Please don’t try it on me,” begged the young lady who had purchased the coupons. “I don’t want a scene,” and she regarded Walter smilingly.

“Of course not,” agreed Cora. “Oh, dear! My nice car, that I was counting on taking to Camp Surprise with me.”

“We’ll get it back before then!” declared Jack.

“Oh! but we’re going earlier than we planned originally,” said Belle.

“And she wants you boys to come, too!” cried Bess.

“No more than you do!” snapped Belle, her fair face flushing.

“What’s the idea?” asked Walter.

“It’s getting so unbearably warm,” said Cora, and then she explained that they might go earlier than originally planned to the bungalow camp in the mountains.

“Well, we might manage it,” Jack said. “We’ll talk it over, Wally. Have to see Paul, though I guess he’d fit in anywhere Bess went.”

“Oh! is that so?” cried the plump girl, blushing in her turn.

The tea room people promised to be on the lookout for the strange young men, and to notify Jack or the police if they came around again.

“But if they were the ones who took the car they won’t come back,” Walter declared.

By crowding, all the young people managed to get in Jack’s car. On the way back to Chelton a sharp lookout was kept for the missing machine, but no trace of it was seen, and Cora was much depressed when she reached home.

“Never mind,” whispered Jack, “you may use mine, Sis, until yours shows up. Don’t worry, we’ll get it yet.”

“I hope so,” murmured Cora.

CHAPTER IV – A CURIOUS STORY

Such measures as one might expect to have taken in a place like Chelton and the surrounding towns were taken by the authorities in an endeavor to recover Cora’s stolen automobile. For stolen it certainly was, and not taken in a joke. That fact was patent when several days passed and no trace of it was found and no word received as to where it might have been taken or abandoned by the two strange young men.

“They might merely have taken it to get some place, seeing that they had no money,” observed Belle, when the three girls were talking the matter over one day at Cora’s house.

“They had railroad tickets, though,” said Belle.

“Yes, but to New York, and perhaps they didn’t want to go there.”

“I should think New York would be just the place where they would want to go if they had no money,” came from Cora. “There are so many chances to make money there.”

“Perhaps they didn’t dare go,” suggested Belle.

“What do you mean?” came in a duet from the others.

“They might have done something – perhaps have taken another auto – and they knew the police would be after them,” explained Belle.

“Quite dramatic,” observed Cora. “But whoever they are or whatever their motive, I wish they’d send back my car. I want it.”

“I don’t blame you a bit,” came from Bess. “Come on, we’ll go out on another searching tour.”

“All right,” agreed Cora, and they were soon on the road again in the car of the Robinson twins. The girls had not left it all to the authorities to find the missing automobile. They had made diligent inquiries themselves on all roads leading out of Chelton and in the vicinity of the tea room. Nor had the boys been idle. Paul Hastings arrived in town on business connected with the automobile concern by which he was employed, and he, Jack and Walter, made it their business to scurry around in Jack’s car, looking for clews.

But the slender ones they found proved unavailing. Automobiles are all too common to attract attention unless there is something unusual about them. And Cora’s car, while it was a fine one, was not unusual enough to call for special notice.

The number on the license plates had been given to the police and constables, but it would have been a comparatively easy matter for the thieves to change the number or rub oil on and let dust accumulate until it would have been all but indecipherable. Then, too, persons seldom notice the number on a car unless there has been some accident.

“It just seems to have disappeared,” declared Cora at the close of the day, when a long tour and many inquiries had resulted in nothing. “I just wish I had hold of those two fellows!”

“It is provoking,” agreed Belle. “Let’s stop at the tea room and see if they’ve heard anything more there.”

The girl at the cash register, the young lady manager, and the colored maid who had waited on them before greeted the three pretty chums smilingly as they again entered the pleasant tea room of Ye Olde Spinning Wheel.

“Were your tickets for the play all right?” asked Cora as the manager stepped over to inquire if everything was to their liking.

“I haven’t used them yet. They are for this week Friday. Oh! I’m sure they’re all right. Some of my friends bought tickets from the same fellows for the same night and they are next mine.”

“Those chaps must have planned for a regular theatre party,” observed Belle.

“Have you had any trace of your car yet?” the cashier asked, as Cora went up to pay the check.

“No, I’m sorry to say, I haven’t.”

“If you don’t get it soon, Cora,” said Belle, “you’d better plan to use ours to go to Camp Surprise.”

“Oh, we’re going in the motor boat,” Cora said. “I didn’t tell you, but mother learned that the roads around the camp were so rough that it would certainly spoil a car to take it to camp, so I wouldn’t take mine, anyhow.”

“Camp Surprise,” repeated the pretty cashier. “That sounds interesting.”

“I hope we don’t find it too much so,” returned Belle.

The plans for going to live at the bungalow with the odd name, which was situated in the mountains some miles west of Chelton, had been talked over at length, and an earlier trip than the one originally decided on had been voted for.

“Going in the motor boat! How nice!” cried Bess, as they went out of the tea room. “Then it doesn’t matter about your auto, Cora – I mean, of course – oh! I don’t mean that!” she cried, blushing. “Of course you want it back – ”

“Well, I should say I do!” exclaimed Jack’s sister with mock indignation.

“I mean we won’t have to wait until you get your car back before going to Camp Surprise,” Bess went on.

“No,” agreed Cora. “That won’t delay us.”

“And now don’t you think you ought to tell us why the camp where we are going to spend most of the summer has such an odd name?” asked Belle.

“I’ve been meaning to this long while,” assented Cora, “but so many things have happened that I didn’t get to it. Come on, let’s sit out here on the porch, where it’s so nice, cool and shady, and I’ll tell you all I know.”

“You couldn’t, Cora, dear – not in the limited time at our disposal,” said Belle, languidly sinking into an easy wicker chair. “You know too much.”

“Thank you. I believe this was my treat, so now we’re even. But I meant all I know about Camp Surprise.”

“First, how did it get its name?” asked Bess.

“Because of the surprising things that happen there.”

“Happen – happen?” queried Belle. “Do you mean they still happen?”

“Well, so mother said,” observed Cora.

“Bur-r-r!” shivered Bess, with a hasty glance over her shoulder. “I’m not so sure I want to go there.”

“Nonsense!” cried Cora. “If there’s a ghost we’ll lay it – whatever that means.”

“Oh, Cora! Ghosts!”

“Oh! I don’t mean that, exactly. It isn’t so bad as that. The worst things that have happened are that things in the bungalow seem to be upset and misplaced without reason.”

“Upset? Misplaced?” murmured Belle.

“Without reason?” added her sister.

“Oh! perhaps I am making a mountain out of a molehill,” confessed Cora. “This is how the matter stands. Up in the mountains are a number of camps, cottages, bungalows – what you like – which belong to a development company. The bungalows and camps are rented, furnished, to whoever wants them. Camp Surprise, where we shall have a good-sized bungalow to live in, is one of the best of these resorts. It is about five miles in from the Towanda river, which is what the Chelton is called up state, and it was going up the river that I planned to use the motor boat.”

“How do we get over the five miles?” asked Bess.

“By buckboards over a mountain road. That’s why we won’t need the autos. Of course we could use a car, but as long as mine is still among the missing we won’t make any such plans. Camp Surprise is right on the edge of a stream which is quiet enough in dry weather, but a torrent when there’s a heavy rain. And there’s a little lake and a waterfall near the bungalow.”

“That sounds lovely,” remarked Belle.

“It is lovely,” asserted Cora. “I’ve seen pictures of it. And while our bungalow is on one side of the mountain torrent there is another one, not far off, on the other side, where the boys are going to stay.”

“How nice,” commented Bess.

“Is that other bungalow within sight or calling distance of ours?” asked Belle.

“One or the other, yes,” assented Cora. “But why so anxious?”

“Because when those ghosts, or whatever they are, get to moving things about I want a man, or at least a good-sized boy around,” was the answer.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Cora. “It isn’t so bad as that.”

“Say it again,” begged Bess. “You told about unseen hands moving chairs and tables.”

“I didn’t mean it exactly that way,” and Cora smiled. “You see there is a man and his wife who have rooms in the bungalow, Mr. and Mrs. Floyd. They look after the place, and they’ll be our chaperons. I did think mother might be able to go with us, but she won’t. But mother knows Mrs. Floyd, and says she’s very nice.”

“I hope the ghosts will be nice,” said Belle.

Cora laughed.

“Oh, you funny girl! Why will you persist in calling them ghosts?”

“Well, aren’t they? Moving chairs about?”

“Is that what happened – or happens?” asked Bess.

“So I understand,” returned Cora. “Mr. and Mrs. Floyd don’t use the main bungalow, keeping to their own rooms. But they wrote mother that, of late, there have been some queer goings on. They said they would go out, leaving the rooms in perfect order, only to find them all upset on their return. Chairs would be misplaced, tables that had been in the middle of the room would be shoved back against the wall. Dishes would be taken out of the closets, and – ”

“Tramps!” interrupted Belle.

“What?” cried Cora, rather startled by the suddenness of the ejaculation.

“I mean tramps got in and did it.”

“No, I don’t think so,” and Cora spoke slowly. “For, though the dishes were taken from the pantry, there was no food missing. Tramps would take food.”

“Is this all that happened?” Bess demanded.

“Well, once something was taken,” Cora said. “A party had the bungalow, and when they left at the end of their stay, they forgot to take some of their silver with them. Then came one of the upsetting periods, and the furniture was misplaced and the silver taken.”

Belle and Bess looked at their chum, then the former said slowly:

“I – I don’t believe we want to go to Camp Surprise, Cora.”

CHAPTER V – COUNTERFEIT TICKETS

Cora laughed melodiously. Belle and Bess looked at her with just a shade of indignation in their eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d be such – such, well, I won’t say cowards,” Cora voiced, when the gale of merriment had passed. “But I think, Belle, that you would rise above the occasion, even if Bess – ”

“Now what is there she can do that I can’t?” demanded the plump twin truculently. “I guess if it’s a question of bravery, I’m as willing as she is to go to Camp Surprise.”

“I thought you’d be,” Cora observed.

“But is it a question of bravery?” asked Belle.

“What else?” her sister demanded.

“Well, from the way in which Cora told it, I should think it would need some members of the Society for Psychic Research to get to the bottom of all those queer manifestations. Cora Kimball!” Belle suddenly exclaimed, sitting up in her chair. “You haven’t been hoaxing us; have you? This isn’t a joke; is it? I mean all those things really did happen; didn’t they?”

“My! what a lot of questions to set off at once,” objected Cora. “But I can answer them all by saying that I have given the story to you just as it came to me. As far as I know, it’s no joke, and the way the furniture behaved, or rather, was made to act, is strictly true.”

“And you are still going to Camp Surprise?” asked Bess.

“Certainly. Why not?”

“Well – er – that is – Oh! of course I know there’s no such thing as a ghost,” said Belle. “But, at the same time, even if those things happened by human agencies – as naturally they did – it might make it very unpleasant for us up there.”

“Nonsense!” cried Cora. “It will make it all the more interesting. Think of the fun we can have, organizing ghost-detecting parties, sitting up until all hours of the night, daring the boys to sit with us. And then, after all, finding out it is only the tricks of some alleged fun-loving person, or perhaps boys of the neighborhood.”

“Do you really think so, Cora?” Belle asked.

“Why, yes.”

“I don’t know,” murmured Bess, thoughtfully.

“Come! Where has all the bravery of the Motor Girls vanished to?” demanded Cora with a silvery laugh. “We didn’t act thus timidly when we solved the secret of the red oar on Crystal Bay. And perhaps – ”

“Cora’s right!” interrupted Belle.

“She generally is,” contributed Bess.

“There’s a secret here, and we will solve it!” her sister went on. “I didn’t look at it that way before, but I see it now. We mustn’t be driven away, or kept from going just because of these rumors. We’ll go to Camp Surprise and surprise those who are making such a fuss there. I wonder some one hasn’t done it long ago.”

“Just what I was about to remark,” came from Cora. “I’m glad to see that your natural courage has come back. I thought it would. We haven’t been together on various quests for nothing. Now we’ll prove ourselves true Motor Girls, and get at the bottom of these surprising happenings. You won’t back out?”

“Never!” affirmed Bess.

“Cross my heart!” laughed her sister, with the old, familiar, childish gesture of emphasizing a statement.

“Then it’s all settled. Now let’s go home. Jack and Walter said they were going over to Meadport to-day to see if any word had been received there of my missing auto. They may have returned with some news.”

“Why was Meadport regarded so favorably?” asked Bess.

“Well, a constable there sent word to our police that there had been a number of petty robberies committed in the neighborhood. A number of thefts would take place in one night, and so far apart that the only probable theory was that the thieves used an auto. Jack thought my dear car might be used for such base purposes, so he and Wally went over there to-day.”

“Let us hope they have good news,” said Belle, as with her sister and Cora she entered the Robinson automobile and headed back for Cheerful Chelton.

“Nothing doing,” announced Jack, as his sister and her chums came in sight of the Kimball home, and saw him with Walter, sitting on the broad, shady piazza. “Absolutely nothing transpiring, as the poet saith.”

“College hasn’t improved your slang any,” observed Bess.

“No, I guess I’ll have to take a P. G. course to accomplish that. I am a bit rusty. Wally, suppose you give them a sample.”

“Spare us,” murmured Cora. “Was there really no news, Jack?”

“Not an atom, or even a molecule. Which is smaller, Wally? I forget.”

“Same here. Anyhow they hadn’t caught those Meadport thieves, so whether they have your auto or not, Cora, my dear, remains yet to be proved.”

The young people talked on, the conversation reverting naturally to Camp Surprise.

“What do you think it all means, Jack?” asked Bess.

“Kids playing tricks,” declared Jack tersely. “So it didn’t scare you girls out from going?”

“Of course not!” declared Bess indignantly. A look passed from her to Cora, from Cora to Belle – and that was all.

“That’s right!” chimed in Walter. “Don’t let a little thing like that scare you away. We’ll get at the bottom of this mystery.”

“When do you plan to go?” asked Cora of her brother.

“As soon as Wally can get his new suit that he’s ordered from that nobby tailor.”

“Don’t you believe him,” cried Walter, thumping his chum on the back. “I’m as ready as he is. He’s waiting for one of those sport shirts – ”

“Go on! I wouldn’t wear one!”

“Well, make up your minds, and we’ll all go together,” urged Cora. “We can go up in the motor boat as far as possible, and take buckboards the rest of the way. We’d like to have you boys on hand when we begin the investigation of Camp Surprise.”

“Oh, ho! Afraid?” laughed Walter. “I thought there was a mouse in the woodpile somewhere, Jack, my boy!”

“Nothing of the sort!” came from Cora. “Besides, you’re thinking of the mouse and the lion. It is an African gentleman of color who makes the woodpile his habitation.”

“That’s right,” admitted Walter. “I never was very good at dates anyhow.”

“Fig paste is more to your liking. Have a chocolate,” urged Bess.

“We want you along to bear testimony when we have routed out the mischief-makers,” said Cora, after the laughter had subsided. “Your bungalow is near ours, and we can call to you to come and hold the disturbers when we capture them.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” asked Jack.

“Certainly,” returned Belle, as if the girls had never hesitated.

“Well, it would be a pity to disappoint you,” Walter declared. “We’ll go when they do, Jack. But – whisper – they’ll be more than a week yet. I know girls.”

“You only think you do,” mocked Cora. “We’ll be ready before you are.”

Then they began to talk seriously and plan for their summer outing. It was not the first time they had been away together, the boys and girls often going to the same resort and occupying adjacent bungalows or cottages. In this way they divided such work as there was, and multiplied the possible good times.

Mrs. Kimball was to go to the Thousand Islands with her sister, which left Jack and Cora free to do as they pleased. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson would, as usual, occupy their seashore cottage, but Bess and Belle would not join them there until later in the season, going first to Camp Surprise with Cora.

“Well, now it’s all settled,” declared Cora, after a season of talk. “We’ll go to Camp Surprise two weeks from to-day. I’ll tell mother, and have her write to Mrs. Floyd to have everything in readiness.”

“Even the ghosts?” demanded Walter.

“Even the ghosts,” agreed Cora, accepting the implied challenge.

“Good!” cried Jack.

A few days after this the three girls, all of whom belonged to a church home mission society, went to take some medicine and food to an old woman who was one that the society looked after. This dependent lived some distance out of Cheerful Chelton, and the Robinson twins brought their car in which to carry the baskets of food.

They had done their little errand of mercy and on the way back Cora proposed that they stop at Ye Olde Spinning Wheel for some tea or ice cream, as the girls preferred.

They had the place practically to themselves, as it was not the hour when most motorists stopped for refreshments. Cora and her chums spoke to the manager, and noticed that she seemed a bit downcast.

“What is the matter?” asked Cora.

“Oh, it’s something that happened last night. You know I told you I had two tickets for the opera. My friend gave me the money to get them, and I bought them off the two young fellows who were here one day last week.”

“Yes, it was the time my auto was taken,” Cora said.

“Of course! I ought to have remembered. Well, I bought two tickets for the opera from those men at a reduced price.”

“And couldn’t your friend go with you?” asked Belle sympathetically.

“Oh, yes. He came for me all right. But when we went to go in they wouldn’t let us.”

“Who wouldn’t let you, those two young men?” asked Cora eagerly.

“No, I only wish it had been the young men. I’d have had ’em arrested. But the doorkeeper would not let me and my friend in on those tickets.”

“Why not?” asked Bess.

“Because he said they were counterfeit. And after my friend had given me his good money for them. I was that angry I could have cried! Counterfeit tickets! What do you know about that?”