A full minute pa.s.sed.
"Guess it has gone to sleep," he thought, at the same moment trying to suppress a distinct yawn.
Then he thought he saw something move. He stepped cautiously up to the trembling leaves. Like a shiver that swept through the silent darkness, the branches barely swayed.
"It"s creeping along," he surmised. "Now, I have to move along with it."
With his steps quite as noiseless as those within the hedge, Jack did move toward the roadway. There the hedge would end, and something had to happen.
"Queer race," he was thinking, when all of a sudden, without any warning, the shadow sprang out of the branches, darted across the path not five feet from where Jack stood spellbound, and dashed on back to the hotel.
"Good-bye," called Jack lightly, realizing now that the apparition was nothing more or less than a girl. "Think you might have let me take you, though."
He knew now that further watching would be useless, as the broad piazzas of the hotel, with endless bas.e.m.e.nt steps, afforded such seclusion that he would find it impossible to penetrate, so he, too, turned back, and crossed the other side of the hedge, as he had done in coming down. Something in the bushes caught his eye, even in the shadows. It was a bundle of some sort. He stooped and touched it. Then he rolled it over. It was very light, and a small package.
"Guess it won"t bite," he thought. "I may as well take it along," and with this he very cautiously picked up the package, and walked back to the hotel.
CHAPTER XVII
AT WAYSIDE INN
The light still gleamed under the door of the alcove room. Jack was not sorry that he would have company in his bundle investigation.
"But Walter and Ed will blame me for not giving them the tip," he told himself. "We surely could have bagged that wild bird, if there only had been some one on the other side of the hedge."
Ed opened the door before Jack had time to knock.
"Where in the world have you been?" demanded the young man, who stood within the room, clothed in the splendor of a real athlete. "We had just about given you up. Who is she?"
"Search me?" replied Jack, laughing at the fitness of the slang and at the same time apologizing for its vulgarity. "If I only knew who she was I"d feel better."
"If he only knew who she was," repeated Walter, between a howl and a grunt.
"Oh, if he only knew," added Ed, dragging Jack into the room, and closing the door after him.
Then they saw the package. Walter grabbed it from Jack"s hands. "Did she send it to us?" he asked, placing it comically on the washstand and making queer "pa.s.ses" in front of it.
"It"s for me," insisted Ed. "She promised to send me just that very bundle," and he yanked it from the stand and placed it on the mantel.
"Oh, for goodness sake, open it," interrupted Jack, glad of a good chance to get some one other than himself to attempt that uncertain proceeding.
"It"s light," commented Ed, giving the ends of the package an undoing twist.
Walter and Jack leaned over very close. Ed stretched out his arms to keep them off.
Then the paper spread open and the contents were in full sight.
A ma.s.s of light-brown hair!
"Oh, you--murderer!" exclaimed Ed, as loudly as the hour would politely admit. "To scalp her!"
But Jack was more surprised than were his friends.
"A girl"s hair!" he exclaimed.
"_Her_ hair!" corrected Ed. "Oh, if he only knew who _she_ was!" and his voice mocked the words Jack had uttered when he entered the room.
"Jack Kimball!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Walter. "This is the "unkindest cut of all.""
"We denounce you!" added Ed. "This is outrageous!"
Jack looked closely at the severed locks. "A pretty color," he mused.
"Sort of burnished gold!"
This attempt at the poetical brought the unrestrained wrath of his companions on his head, for both Walter and Ed simply "fell to," and pounded Jack "good and proper."
He begged for mercy. Then they did let him go.
"Now, honest Injun," started Walter, "tell us about it."
But the strange race through the hedge was really too unusual to be comprehended or believed at once. Still Jack insisted upon every detail of the affair, and his friends finally did believe a part of it, at least.
"And whose locks do you suppose they are?" asked Ed when the opportunity for that question arrived.
"If I--only--knew!" reiterated Jack.
"Let me see!" murmured the prudent Walter. "What was the shade of hair worn by the runaways of the strawberry patch? If I mistake not----"
"You win!" interrupted Jack. "They were strawberry blondes!"
"And it"s as clear as the nose on your face that they had to cut the locks off--that they are here in the hotel at this very moment----"
He was actually jumping into his outer clothes.
"Where are you going?" demanded Jack.
"To find Rose," insisted Ed. "My Rose--or was she your Rose--and is she my Nellie?"
"For goodness sake, man!" wailed Jack, "don"t make any further fuss around here to-night. The ladies and the girls will be scared to death if you start chasing my--shadow. We have got to-morrow to investigate.
If the runaways are here to-night they will be here to-morrow."
"That sounds like good advice," a.s.sented Walter. "And if I don"t get a little rest there will be great ugly dark rings under my eyes, and my complexion will simply be ruined."
"And his hair won"t stay up," added Ed, taking up the girlish tone Walter had a.s.sumed. "Well, if you beauties must sleep suppose you go at it. I could snore looking at the floor," and Ed suited his actions to the words, for very shortly, neither Walter nor Jack could compel him to answer a single question with so much as an intelligent grunt.