Julia Martin found the popular bachelor decidedly absent-minded. The crack young polo player thought the scenery disappointing. Decidedly, it was a dull party.
And the weather was threatening.
So after supper had been disposed of and there had been a bonfire and an effort at singing about it, a dispirited silence spread until a decent interval was felt to have elapsed and allowed the suggestion of return.
Once it was suggested everybody seemed ready for the start, even without the moon, for the path was fairly clear and the men had pocket flashlights, so down in the dark they started, proceeding cautiously and gingerly, and acc.u.mulating mental reservations about mountains and mountain climbing until the moon suddenly overtook them and sent a silvering wash of light into the valley at their feet.
They had gained the main path before the moon deserted them, and the first of the gusty showers sent them hurrying along in shivering impatience for the open fires of homes.
"We"ll find that pair of short sports toasting their toes and giving us the laugh," predicted Bob, tramping along, a hand on Ruth"s arm now.
Ruth was wearing his huge college sweater over her silk one and felt indefinably less adventurous and independent than on her upward trip.
Bob seemed very stable, very desirable, as she stumbled wearily on. She wasn"t quite sure what she had wanted to gain time for, that afternoon.
Already the barriers of custom and common-sense were raising their solid heads.
And Bob was romance, too. It was silly to be unready for surrender. She realized that if she lost him. . . .
At the Lodge she gave him back a quick look that set him astir.
"Hold on," he called as she broke from him to follow her mother.
The cars from the Martin house party had been left at the Lodge in readiness and with perfunctory warmth of farewells the tired mountaineers were hastening either to the Lodge or the motors.
"Here"s Johnny"s car," he sung out. "He"s probably inside----" and Bob swung hastily after Ruth and her mother.
He was up the steps beside them and opened the door into the wide hall where a group was lingering about the open fire.
A glance told them Johnny Byrd was not of the company. Bob and Ruth went to the door of the music room. It was deserted. Mrs. Blair went swiftly to the clerk"s desk at the side entrance.
She came back, looking upset. Maria Angelina had not returned, to the clerk"s knowledge. No one had telephoned any news.
"I"ll go up and make sure," offered Ruth, and sped up the stairs only to return in a few minutes with a face of dawning excitement.
"They must be lost!" she announced in a voice that drew instant attention.
"Did you look to see if her things were there?" said her mother in an agitated undertone.
Bob Martin met her glance with swift intelligence.
"Johnny"s car is out there," he told them. "It isn"t _that_--they are simply lost, as Ruth says. Wait--I must tell them before they get away,"
and he hurried out into the increasing downpour.
Mrs. Blair turned on her daughter a face of pale misgiving.
"I knew it," she said direfully. "I felt it all along. . . . She"s lost."
"Well, she"ll be found," said Ruth lightly, with an indisputable lift of excitement. "The bears won"t eat them."
Mrs. Blair"s eyes shifted uneasily to meet the advancing circle from the fire.
"There are worse bites than bears"," she found time to throw out, before she had to voice the best possible version of Maria Angelina"s disappearance.
Instantly a babble of facile comfort rose.
They would be here any moment now.
Some one had picked them up--they were safe and sound, this instant.
There wasn"t a thing that could happen--it wasn"t as though these were _wilds_.
Just telephone about--she mustn"t worry. As soon as it was light some one would go out and track them.
Why, Judge Carney"s boys had been lost all night and breakfasted on blueberries. It wasn"t uncommon.
And nothing could happen to her--with Johnny Byrd along.
Oh, Johnny would take care of her--by morning everything would be all right.
But how in the world had it happened? That was such an _easy_ trail!
And that was the question that stared, Argus-eyed, at Jane Blair. It was the question, she knew, that they were all asking themselves--and the others--in covert curiosity.
What had happened? And how had it happened?
CHAPTER X
FANTASY
She awoke to fright--some great hairy beast of the forest was nosing her.
Then a light flashed in her eyes, and as she closed them, drifting off to exhaustion again, she half saw a figure stooping towards her. Then she felt herself being carried, while a barking seemed to be all about her.
The next thing she knew was light forcing its brightness through her closed lids and a great warmth beating upon her.
She dragged her eyes open again. She was lying on a black bear skin rug before a roaring fire, and some one was kneeling beside her, tucking cushions beneath her head. She had a glimpse of a khaki sleeve and a lean brown wrist.
The warmth was delicious. She wanted to put her head back against those pillows and sleep forever but memory was rousing, too.
Sleepily, she mumbled, "What time is it?"
The khaki shirt sleeve had withdrawn from view and the answering voice came from a corner of the room.
"It"s about two."
Two o"clock! The night gone--gone past redemption.