"Even those horrid men?" asked Grace.
"Well, if they have a right to the diamonds, the fact of their being horrid, as you call it, should not deprive them of the stones," Betty said.
"We ought to get a reward, anyhow," spoke Amy.
"That"s right, little girl!" exclaimed Betty. "Well, I do wish it was settled, one way or the other. Having fifty thousand dollars" worth of diamonds, more or less, in one"s possession isn"t calculated to make one sleep nights. And I just would love one of those big sparklers in a ring. I think----"
But Betty did not complete her sentence. There was a rattling sound on the farther side of a sand dune around which the girls were just then making their way. Some gravel and sh.e.l.ls seemed to be sliding down the declivity.
"What"s that?" asked Grace, shrinking back against Betty.
"I don"t know," answered the Little Captain. "Maybe the wind."
But it was not the wind, for, a moment later, the wrinkled face of the aged crone of the fisherman"s cabin peered at the girls from over the rushes that grew in the sand hill.
"Oh, excuse me, my dears," she said in her cracked voice. "I didn"t see you. Out for a walk again; aren"t you, my dears? Won"t you come up to my cottage, and have a gla.s.s of milk?"
"No, thank you," Betty answered, and she could not help being "short,"
as she said afterward. "We are going on a little picnic."
She swung around into another path between the dunes, and changed her mind about going to look at the hole near the broken spar, where the diamonds had been found.
"Oh, I wonder if she heard us?" whispered Mollie, as they lost sight of the old crone around the rushes and dunes.
"I hope not," said Betty, and her usually smiling face wore a worried look.
CHAPTER XX
CAUGHT
"That woman seems to--persecute us!" burst out Mollie, when the girls were well on their way again, out of range of the sand dunes, going down the beach where the salty air of the ocean and bay blew in their faces.
"Oh, hardly as bad as _that_," remarked Amy.
"Well, she always seems to be following us," insisted Mollie, "and I am positively tired of being asked to her cottage to drink milk."
"I"d never touch a thing she offered," said Betty. "I would be afraid it wouldn"t be--clean."
"She always seems to leer at one so," went on Mollie.
"Oh, you"re making out a terrible case against the old woman," Grace put in, carefully selecting a chocolate from her supply.
"Well, she is very persistent," observed Betty. "And now let"s forget all about her, and the--well, I won"t mention them, but you know what I mean," and she smiled at her chums. Indeed Betty was beginning to think she had been just a little indiscreet in speaking aloud of the precious stones.
"We"ll just have a good outing, as we used to," she went on.
"Like the time when we found the five-hundred-dollar bill," suggested Amy.
"Or when the girl fell out of the tree," added Mollie.
"Gracious! Those _were_ tragic times enough!" broke in Grace.
"But we enjoyed them--after they were over," added Betty. "And I think we shall enjoy finding--well, finding what we did find, after Allen straightens it out for us."
"Oh, is he going to straighten it out for us?" asked Mollie.
"Well, isn"t he working hard on it?" Betty wanted to know.
"I thought Will was going to get us clues," Mollie went on. "Or your father?"
"Oh, of course they may find the owners, but they are waiting for something to be published in the papers."
"Well, is Allen doing any more?" Amy asked. "If he is he hasn"t said anything to us about it, though of course you"d be the first one to hear of it, Betty," she said, innocently enough.
"I?" cried the Little Captain, with upraised eyebrows. "Why I, pray?"
"Oh, because you and Allen are----"
"That"s enough!" laughed Mollie. "Spare her blushes, child!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Amy, in confusion.
"You needn"t worry about me," said Betty, quickly. "What I meant was that Allen is working on a plan to solve the mystery."
"Has he told you all about it?" Grace wanted to know.
"Not all. We agreed that it would be better to say nothing to any one else about it until he was ready to act."
"Oh, of course," admitted Mollie. "The fewer the outsiders are who know about the--well, let"s call them "apples," and then no one will suspect.
The fewer who know about the "apples" so much the better. But I do hope we each get one--"apple"--out of it," and she laughed.
"We ought to," returned Betty. She looked back toward the sand dunes, possibly for a sight of the old fishwife, but no one was in view.
The girls wandered on. The day was bright and beautiful, giving little hint of the tragic occurrence that was in the air. It was as if the outdoor girls were on one of the walking tours which they had inst.i.tuted. The sand, however, was not conducive to rapid progress, and they were content to stroll idly.
They were now past the place where the diamonds had been found, though they were all anxious for a sight of the hole in the sand, to see if they could discover any signs that those who hid the precious stones there had come back to find their booty gone. But they did not think it wise to visit the place, with that queer old woman in the nearby sand dunes.
Now and then they would stop to pick up some prettier sh.e.l.l than usual, or to gather a few of the odd-shaped pebbles.
"They look just like that queer candy they sell in Tracey"s," commented Grace, as she rattled a handful of the little stones of various colors, shapes and sizes.
"Oh, the pebble candy--yes," a.s.sented Mollie. "I wonder what they will imitate next?"
"Plenty of wood here for a marshmallow roast," commented Amy, a little later, as she idly kicked the bits of drift on the beach.