The Camp Fire Girls at the Seashore; Or, Bessie King's Happiness
Page 2
CHAPTER II
A NEW ALLY
"I guess you haven't met Billy Trenwith properly yet, Eleanor," saidCharlie Jamieson, smiling.
"Maybe not," said Eleanor, returning the smile, "but I regard him as afriend already, Charlie. He was splendid this morning. If he hadn'tunderstood so quickly, and acted at once, the way he did, I don't knowwhat would have happened."
"I'm afraid I didn't really understand at all, Miss Mercer," saidTrenwith, a good looking young fellow, with light brown hair and greyblue eyes, that, although mild and pleasant enough now, had been as coldas steel when Bessie had seen him on the yacht. "But I could understandreadily enough that you were in trouble, and I knew that Charlie'scousin wouldn't appeal to me unless there was a good reason. So I didn'tfeel that I was taking many chances in doing what you wished."
"I'm afraid you took more chances than you know about, Billy," saidCharlie, gravely. "You're in politics, aren't you? And you haveambitions for more of a job than you've got now?"
"Oh, yes, I'm in politics, after a fashion," admitted Trenwith. "But Iguess I could manage to keep alive if I never got another politicaloffice. I had a bit of a practice before I became district attorney, andI think I could build it up again."
"Well, I hope this isn't going to make any difference, Billy. But it'sonly fair for you to know the sort of game you're running into. I don'twant to feel that you're going ahead to help us without understandingthe situation just as it is."
"You talk as if this might be a pretty complicated bit of business,Charlie. Suppose you loosen up and tell me about it. Then I may be ableto figure better on how I can help you."
"That's just what I'm going to do, old man. I want you to meet two ofcousin's protegees here--Bessie King and Zara, the mysterious. If weknew more about Zara and her affairs this wouldn't be such a Chinesepuzzle. But here goes! Ask me all the questions you like. And yougirls--if I go wrong, stop me.
"In the first place, Miss Mercer here took a party of her Camp FireGirls, these same ones that you can see there so busy about gettingbreakfast, over the state line, and they went to a camp on a lake alittle way from a village called Hedgeville."
"I know the place," nodded Trenwith. "Never been there, but I know whereit is."
"Well, one morning they discovered these two--Bessie and Zara. Andthey'd had a strange experience. They were running away!"
"Bad business, as a rule," commented Trenwith. "But I suppose there wasa good reason?"
"You bet there was, old chap! Bessie had lived for a good many yearswith an old farmer called Hoover and his wife. They had a son, too, aworthless young scamp named Jake, lazy and ready for any sort ofmischief that turned up."
"Is she related to them in any way, Charlie?"
"Not a bit of it! When she was a little bit of a kid her parents lefther there as a boarder, and they were supposed to send money to pay forher keep until they came back to get her. For a while they did, but thenthe money stopped coming."
"But they kept her on, just the same?"
"Yes, as a sort of unpaid servant. She did all the work she couldmanage, and she didn't have a very good time. Zara, here, has a father.How long ago did Zara and her father come to Hedgeville, Bessie?"
"They'd been there about two years when we--we had to run away, Mr.Jamieson. They came from some foreign country, you know."
"Yes. And the people around Hedgeville couldn't make much out aboutthem, so they decided, of course, being unable to understand them, thatthere must be something wrong about Zara's dad. No real reason at all,except that he only spoke a little English, and liked to keep hisbusiness to himself."
Trenwith laughed.
"I know," he said. "I see a lot of that sort of thing."
"Well, the day before the two of them ran away--or the day before theyfound the girls, rather--there'd been a fine shindy at the Hoovers. Zarawent over to see Bessie, and Jake Hoover locked her in a tool shed. Thenhe managed, without meaning to do it, to set the tool shed afire, andsaid he was going to say that Bessie had done it."
"Fine young pup, he must be!"
"Yes--worth knowing! Anyhow, Bessie had only too good reason to knowthat his mother would believe him and take his word, no matter what sheand Zara said. So, being scared, she just ran. I don't blame her; I'dhave done the same thing myself. You and I both know that knowing he'sinnocent doesn't keep a man who is unjustly accused from being afraid."
"No," said Trenwith, thoughtfully. "I've had to learn that it doesn'tpay to think a man's guilty because he's scared and confused. It's anold theory that innocence shows in a prisoner's eyes, and it's verypretty--only it isn't true."
"Well, even so, they might not have run away if it hadn't happened thatthat was the day Zara's father was arrested. Apparently with an oldmiser and money lender called Weeks as the moving spirit, a charge ofcounterfeiting was cooked up against him, and they took him off to mytown to jail."
"But it's in another state!"
"United States case, you see. My town's the centre of the Federaldistrict. Zara and Bessie happened to get on to this, and when theycrept up to Zara's house to find out if it was true, they overheardenough to show them that it was--and, what was more, that old Weeksmeant to get himself appointed Zara's guardian, and take her home withhim."
"Oh, that was his game, eh?"
"Yes, and if you'd ever seen him, you wouldn't blame Zara for beingready to run away before she went with him. He's the meanest old codgeryou ever saw. But he had a big pull in that region, because he heldmortgages on about all the farms, and he could do about as he liked."
"Well, I don't see why they didn't have a perfect right to run away,"said Trenwith, "legally and morally. They didn't owe anything in the wayof gratitude to any of these people."
"That's just what I said!" declared Eleanor, vehemently. "I looked intothe story they told me, and I found out it was perfectly true. So wehelped them, and took them into this state."
"Yes. And old Weeks chased them, and got Zara away from them once.Bessie tricked him and got her back," said Jamieson. "And then the oldrip got a court order making him Zara's guardian, but he tried to serveit across the state line, and got dished for his trouble. So it lookedas if they'd shaken him pretty well."
"I should say so! Do you mean that he kept it up after that?"
"He certainly did! And he got pretty powerful help too. Here's where thepart of it that ought to interest you really begins. Miss Mercer tookthe two girls home with her, and almost at once, in the middle of thenight, Zara was spirited away. At first we thought she'd been kidnappedbut later it turned out that she'd been deceived, and gone with themwillingly."
"This is beginning to sound pretty exciting, Charlie."
"I got interested in the case, Billy, and I tried to do what I could forZara's father. He didn't trust me much, and I had a dickens of a timepersuading him to talk. And then, just as I was about on the point ofsucceeding, he shut up like a clam, fired me as his lawyer, and hiredIsaac Brack!"
"That little shyster? Good Heavens!"
"Right! Well, she--Zara, I mean--seemed to have vanished into thin air.We couldn't get any trace of her at all, until Bessie here dug up a wildidea that it was in Morton Holmes's car she'd been taken off."
"Holmes, the big dry goods merchant?" said Trenwith, with a laugh. "Howin the world did she ever get such a wild idea as that? He wouldn't bemixed up in anything shady!"
"Just what we told her," said Charlie, unsmilingly, "but she insistedshe was right. And, a little while later, after Miss Mercer had takenthe girls to her father's farm, Holmes came along, tricked her intogetting in his car with another girl, and ran them over the state line.He met Weeks and this Jake Hoover--but Bessie was too smart for them,and got back over the state line safely. And the same day, putting twoand two together, I found Zara, held a prisoner in an old house thatHolmes had bought!"
"Good Lord!" said Trenwith, blankly. "So Holmes had been in it from thestart?"
"I don't know how long he's
been mixed up in it, but he was in it then,with both feet. He was hand in glove with old Weeks, and for some reasonhe was mighty anxious to get both the girls across the state line andinto old Weeks's care as guardian appointed by one of their courts overthere."
"But why, Charlie--why?"
"I wish I knew. I've been cudgelling my brains for weeks to get theanswer to that question, Billy. It's kept me awake nights, and I'm nonearer to it now than I was at the beginning. But hold on, you haven'theard it all yet, by a good deal!"
"What? Do you mean they weren't content with that?"
"Not so that you could notice it, they weren't! The girls went to LongLake, up in the woods, and while they were there, a gypsy tried to carrythem off. He mixed them up a bit, and, partly by good luck, and partlyby Bessie's good nerve and pluck, he was caught and landed in jail atHamilton, the county seat up there."
"Was Holmes mixed up in that?"
"Yes. He'd been fool enough to write a letter to the gypsy, and sign hisown name to it. He hired lawyers to defend the gypsy, too, but thatletter smashed his case, and the gypsy went to jail. They were afraid ofHolmes, though, at Hamilton and we couldn't touch him. He's got a wholelot of money and power, too, especially in politics. So he can get awaywith things that would land a smaller man in jail in a jiffy."
"His money and pull won't do him any good down here," said Trenwith, hiseyes snapping. "Have you any reason to think he was mixed up in thisoutrage here this morning and last night, Charlie?"
"Every reason to think so, Billy, but mighty little proof to back upwhat I think. There's the rub. Still--well, we'll see what we see later.I'll give you some of the reasons."
"You'd better," said Trenwith, grimly. "I think it's pretty nearly timefor me to take a hand in this." He shot a look at Eleanor that Bessiedid not fail to notice. Evidently her charms had already made animpression on him.
"Yesterday, when Miss Mercer brought the girls down to Bay City fromWindsor," Jamieson went on, "the train was to stop for a minute atCanton, which, though they had none of them thought of it, is in Weeks'sstate. And Bessie happened to discover that Jake Hoover was spying onthem. She stayed behind the others at Windsor, discovered that he wastelegraphing the news to Holmes, and guessed the plot."
"Good for her!" exclaimed Trenwith.
"So she got a message through to Miss Mercer on the train, and, beingwarned, Zara was able to elude the people who searched the train for herat Canton. Bessie went on a later train that didn't stop at Canton atall, so they were all right."
"That looks like pretty good evidence," said Trenwith, frowning. "Heknew they were coming here and he'd made one attempt to get hold of themon the way."
"Yes, and there's more. When this yacht turned up here last night, MissMercer and the girls were nervous. And Bessie and her chum Dolly Ransomhappened to overhear two men who were put at the top of that bluff towatch the camp. They talked about 'the boss' and how he meant to getthose girls and had been 'stung once too often.' But they didn't mentionHolmes by name."
"Too bad. Still, that fire was too timely to have been accidental. Ithink maybe we can convict them of starting it. Then if these fellowsthink they're in danger of going to prison, we might offer them a chanceof liberty if they confess and implicate Holmes, do you see?"
"It would be a good bargain, Billy."
"That's what I think. I'd let the tool escape any time to get hold ofthe man who was using him. They and the yacht are held safely at BayCity, in any case, and we have plenty of time to decide what's best tobe done there."
"If I know Holmes, he'll show you his hand pretty soon, Billy. I believehe thinks that every man has his price, and he probably has an idea thathe can get you on his side if he works it right and offers you enough."
"He's got several more thinks coming on that," said Trenwith, angrily."What a hound he must be! We've got to get to the bottom of thisbusiness, Charlie. That's all there is to it!"
"Won't Jake Hoover help, Charlie?" suggested Eleanor. "He told Bessie hewould go in to see you."
"He did come, but I was called away, and meant to talk to him again thismorning, Nell. Then of course I had to come down here when I got thisnews from you and so I didn't have a chance. But I may get something outof him yet."
"We've decided, Mr. Trenwith," Eleanor explained, "that the reason Jakeis doing just what they want is that he's afraid of them--that they knowof some wrong thing he has done, and have been threatening to expose himif he doesn't obey them."
"Well, if they're scaring him," said Charlie, "the thing for us to do isto scare him worse than they can. He'll stick to the side he's mostafraid of."
"Let's get him down here," said Trenwith. "Then we can not only handlehim better, but we can keep an eye on him. I'm with you in this,Charlie, for anything I can do."
"Good man!" said Charlie. "Then you're not afraid of Holmes? He's prettypowerful, you know."
Trenwith looked at Eleanor. And when he saw the smile she gave him, andher look of liking and of confidence, he laughed.
"I guess I can look after myself," he said. "No, I'm not afraid of him,old man! We'll fight this out together."