"Whatever he did to his foot fixed him," said Sherry. "He called it a day when that happened and went off without making a haul. Probably had a pal outside in a machine."
"Nyoda," said Sahwah, struck with a sudden thought, "do you think it could have been Hercules? He might have come in for something in the night."
"Of course!" exclaimed Nyoda. "Why didn"t I think of that before?
Hercules has a key to the back door. How idiotic of me not to have guessed before that it was Hercules. Here we stand looking at these footprints like Robinson Crusoe looking at Friday"s, and talking about burglars, and wracking our brains wondering where he came in, and it must have been Hercules all the while. He cut his foot and came in to get something for it, or he came in to get something more for his cold and cut his foot after he got in. Poor old Hercules! He wouldn"t even wake us up to get help. I"ll go right out and find out what happened to him."
She started for the back door, but before she had reached the kitchen there was a stamping of feet on the back doorstep, a tapping on the door, and then Hercules opened it himself and came in, as was his custom.
"Mawnin", Mis" "Lizbeth," he quavered genially, smiling a broad, toothless smile at the sight of her. "Mighty nippy dis mawnin"." He shivered and stamped his feet on the floor, edging over toward the stove.
Nyoda looked down at his feet hastily and instantly realized that it was not he who had left the print on the stairs. The loose, flapping felt slippers which Hercules invariably wore, bursting out on all sides, would have left a mark twice the size of the mysterious footprints. n.o.body knew just how big Hercules" feet were. He owned to wearing a size twelve, at which Sherry openly scoffed.
"I"ll bet a size fifteen could hurt him," he declared.
The rest also saw at a glance that there was no possibility of Hercules having made the footprints.
Hercules, unconscious of the charged atmosphere of the house, looked around for the breakfast which should be set out for him on the end of the kitchen table at this hour.
"You-all overslep"?" he inquired good-temperedly of Nyoda.
"No, we didn"t," replied Nyoda. "We"ve had a little excitement this morning and forgot all about breakfast. Somebody got into the house last night."
"Burglars?" asked Hercules anxiously. "Did anything get stole?"
"No," replied Nyoda, "nothing was stolen, but the burglar left some b.l.o.o.d.y footprints on the stair runner. We thought at first it might have been you, coming to get something for your cold, but I see now that it is impossible for you to have left the footprints. You didn"t come into the house last night, did you?" she finished.
"No"m," answered Hercules with simple directness. "I done slep" like a top, Miss" "Lizbeth. Took dat hot drink you-all gave me to take, an"
never woke up till de sun starts shinin" dis mawnin". Feelin" better now.
Cold gittin" well. Feelin" mighty hungry." His eye traveled speculatively toward the stove.
There was absolutely no doubt about his telling the truth. When Hercules was trying to conceal something his language was much more eloquent and flowery.
"Your breakfast will be ready before long," said Nyoda kindly. Then, as Hercules hobbled toward the stove she asked solicitously, "Have you a sore foot, Hercules?"
"No"m," replied Hercules, "but the mizry in my knees is powerful bad dis mawnin", Mis" "Lizbeth. Seems like my old jints is gittin" plumb rusted."
He launched into a detailed description of the various pains caused by his "mizry," until Nyoda sought refuge in the front part of the house.
She had heard the tale many times before.
Pretty soon Hercules hobbled in and took a look at the footprints on the stairs.
"Powerful sing"ler," he said, scratching his head in a puzzled way.
Sherry went on to explain all the details for the old man"s benefit. "We thought at first he must have come in through the window on the stair landing, but that hadn"t been touched, so we decided he must have come in through one of the upstairs windows. It seems queer, though, that the footprints should have begun under the stair landing, doesn"t it?"
"What"s the matter, Hercules, are you sick?" asked Nyoda, looking at the old man in alarm. For Hercules" eyes were rolling wildly in his head and his legs threatened to collapse under him. He sat heavily down on a chair and began to rock to and fro, muttering to himself in a terrified way.
Straining their ears to catch his words, they heard him say:
"Debbil"s a-comin", debbil"s a-comin", debbil"s a-comin" after old Herc"les for takin" dat shutter down. Debbil done lef" his footprint fer a warnin" fer old Herc"les."
He seemed beside himself with fright. Nyoda and Sherry looked at each other in perplexity.
"What"s the matter with him?" asked Nyoda, in a tone of concern.
"Superst.i.tious," replied Sherry rea.s.suringly. "Most negroes believe the devil is walking around on two legs, waiting to grab them from behind every fence. You remember Uncle Jasper mentioned in his diary that he told Jasper if he ever took that shutter down the devil would come in through the window and get him. Now he thinks it"s happened. Don"t be alarmed at him. Get him his breakfast, and that"ll give him something else to think about."
The Winnebagos hastened to set out his breakfast on the table, but he ate scarcely anything, and still trembled when he went back to his rooms in the coach house.
"Funny old codger!" commented Sherry, looking after him. "He"s chuck full of superst.i.tion. If he throws many more such fits, I suppose I"ll have to nail up the old shutter again to keep him from dying of fright."
"You"ll do no such thing!" replied Nyoda. "I"ll have no more holes in that cas.e.m.e.nt. Hercules will be all right again in a day or two. By that time he"ll have a new bogie.
"Now everybody come to breakfast, and forget all about this miserable business."
CHAPTER IX THE TRIALS OF AN EXPLORER
"Oh, tell me again about the time you went camping, and the people thought you were drowning," begged Sylvia.
Hinpoha drew up a footstool under her feet, and sank back into a cushioned chair with a long sigh of contentment. All day long she had been helping the others search for the secret pa.s.sage, upstairs and downstairs, and back upstairs again, until she dropped, panting and exhausted, into a chair beside Sylvia in the library and declared she couldn"t stand up another minute. The others never thought of stopping.
"But you aren"t fat," she retorted when Sahwah protested against her dropping out. "You can run up and downstairs like a spider; no wonder you aren"t tired. I"m completely inside."
"You"re what?"
"Completely inside. Cla.s.sical 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 in Uncle Jasper"s study.
"Now tell me about your getting rescued," said Sylvia.
"We were spending the week-end at Sylvan Lake," recounted Hinpoha, "and there were campers all around. Sahwah and I wanted to get an honor for upsetting a canoe and righting it again, so we put on our skirts and middies over our bathing suits and paddled out into deep water. Nyoda was watching us from the sh.o.r.e. We were going to take the complete test-upset the canoe, undress in deep water, right the canoe and paddle back to sh.o.r.e. We got out where the water was over our heads and upset the canoe with a fine splash. We were just coming up and beginning to pull off our middies, when we heard a yell from the sh.o.r.e. Two young men from one of the cottages were tearing down to the beach like mad, throwing their coats into s.p.a.ce as they ran.
""Hold on, girls, we"ll save you," they shouted across the water, and jumped 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!" I sputtered as well as I could for laughing. "Come on, hurry up!"
""What a shame to spoil their chance of being heroes," said Sahwah. "They may never have another chance. Let"s let them tow us in." Sahwah went down under water and did dead man"s float and it looked as though she had gone under. I followed her. But I laughed right out loud under water and made the bubbles go up in a spout and had to go up for air. The two fellows were almost up to us. Sahwah threw up her hand and waved it wildly, and I began to laugh again.
""Keep still and be saved like a lady!" Sahwah hissed, and I straightened out my face just in time. The two fellows took hold of us and towed us to sh.o.r.e. People were lined up all along, watching, and they cheered and made a big fuss over those two fellows. We could see Nyoda and Migwan and Gladys running away with their handkerchiefs stuffed into their mouths.
We lay on the beach awhile, looking awfully limp and scared and after a while we let somebody help us to our cottage, and you should have heard the hilarity after we were alone! We laughed for two hours without stopping. Nyoda insisted that we go and express our grateful thanks to the two young men for saving our lives, and we managed to keep our faces straight long enough to do it, but the strain was awful."
"Oh, what fun!" cried Sylvia, laughing until the tears came, and then with an irresistible burst of longing she exclaimed, "Oh, if I could only do things like other girls!"
"You _are_ going to do things like other girls!" said Hinpoha in the tone of one who knows a delightful secret. "You"re going to walk again; Nyoda said the doctor said so."