"But how could the boys spring their surprise without coming to Hollyhill?" her father asked.

"That's just it," she returned with a quick glance of suspicion toward both her father and her mother. "Do you know, I found myself wondering several times if Clifford wouldn't bring some of those boys down here some time during the holidays."

Mr. Stanlock laughed, but he would have given a good deal to be able to recall the noise he made. It was really a noise, as he must have admitted himself, and so hollow as to indicate something decidedly unlike spontaneous amusement.

Marion caught herself in a brown study several times over these circumstances and her father's manner before she went to sleep that night.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XI.

A MAN OF BIG HEART AND QUEER NOTIONS.

Christmas was a big event at Hollyhill. Hollyhill was well named. Perhaps some old patriarch a century or two back conceived the inspiration of the name while playing Santa Claus with the little tots of the household and pretending to have slid down the chimney without getting a speck of soot on his bulging vestments.

Perhaps he imagined, while mother woke the children and had them peek through a "crack in the door" at the white whiskered visitor stuffing their stockings full of presents, that he had tethered his prancing team of reindeer to a holly tree outside. Certainly there seemed to have been material for such imagination, for tradition said that the hill on which the first houses of the first settlement were built had at one time been richly adorned with a species of American Ilex, and even now there remained here and there carefully preserved remnants of that reported original wealth of the wilderness.

Whether or not this conjectural history of the settlement had anything to do with the cheerful mid-winter holiday developments of the community need not be argued at length. An argument would render the truth flat and insipid if it should prove to be in accord with poetic tradition. So what's the use?

In mid-winter everybody just knew that Hollyhill as a child had been nursed in the snow trimmed evergreen lap of Christmas. Not that this municipality had a corner on mid-winter holiday generosity to the exclusion of all other communities. The chief outstanding fact in this relation was that the inhabitants, or those so fortunate as to be in a position to give and receive abundantly, believed Hollyhill to be the most generous Christmas town on earth, and there was nobody sufficiently interested to make a denial and follow it up with proof.

Much of the credit for this condition was due to the leading man of the place, Richard P. Stanlock, president and controlling power of the Hollyhill Coal Mining company, which owned a string of mines in the mountain district near the divisional line of two states. Besides being the leading citizen, Mr. Stanlock was the "biggest" man in town, because of the position to which he had risen, his ability to hold it, and the influence that went with it. What he said usually went, but his hand was not always evident. He liked to see things done, doubtless enjoyed the realization that his was the great moving power that produced results, but didn't give a fig to have anybody else know it. To his intimate friends, who were few, and to the many with whom he would pass the time of day, he was as common in word and manner as the average householder with nothing more pretentious in life than the earning of his daily bread.

But in spite of all this simplicity and personal retirement Mr. Stanlock was a good deal of a mystery to many citizens who knew really little about him. Or perhaps he was a mystery to these fellow townsfolk because of his modest qualities. Knowing little about him, they imagined more. Leading citizens who knew his good qualities were ever ready with a word of praise for him. But the trouble was, the needed tangible evidence of his broad philanthropy was utterly lacking. Seldom was there a visible connecting link between him and a good deed. And so the praise of his work in pulpit, press and other public and semi-public places fell as platitudes before a considerable number of skeptics, whose favorite reply to this sort of thing was something like—

"Bunk."

But Marion knew that it wasn't "bunk." She was one of the few confidants that gained an intimate understanding of the wealthy mine owner's character. She knew that he was the secret financial backer of an organization of settlement workers which kept close watch on the needs of the miners and their families, many of whom were so woefully ignorant that about the only way to handle them was by appealing to their appetites, their sympathies and their prejudices. She knew, too, that he had strong connections constantly at work fostering and promoting the best of activities for advancement of the civic welfare, that Christmas was one of his secret hobbies and that it was practically impossible for this city of 40,000 inhabitants to neglect this opportunity for a revival of good fellowship and good cheer so long as her father had his hand on the electric key of public generosity.

Christmas was a blaze of glory every year in Hollyhill. Public halls, churches, and theaters were the scenes of the liveliest activities for several days and nights before and after this biggest event of the winter season. Nor was the celebration confined to the more prosperous sections of the town, but extended into the heart of the mining settlement, where Christmas tinsel and lights were lavished without consideration of cost and nobody was allowed to pass the season without being impressively reminded as to just what turkey roast and cranberry sauce tasted like.

So skilfully were these programs put into effect that seldom was a hint dropped from any source that Richard Perry Stanlock was entitled to the slightest credit for these magnificent doings. He spent Christmas at home in a quiet unassuming way amid the family decorations of holly and mistletoe, and a vast litter of presents, oranges, apples, nuts, and candy.

Marion knew that her father's greatest vanity was his secret pride in his ability to put over the biggest generosity of the year without its being traceable to him. One day a girl acquaintance of her asked her if she knew that her father spent $25,000 every year for Christmas. Marion laughed; later she laughingly reported the query to Mr. Stanlock. Next day this girl friend's uncle, one of the philanthropist's agents, was called in on the carpet and given a lecture on the wisdom of guarding his remarks such as he had never before dreamed of receiving.

"Papa," the millionaire's older daughter said to him one day; "don't you think it is foolish to keep secret all these generous things that you are doing?"

"Why do you think it is foolish, my dear?" he replied with an expression of shrewd amusement. He was certain that she would have difficulty in answering his question.

"Well," she began slowly, then admitted: "I don't know."

"I'm very glad you don't know," said her father with evident satisfaction. "If you had tried to give a reason, I should have been greatly disappointed. No explanation of that suggestion could be based on anything but family pride, which is one form of vanity."

"No," Marion differed thoughtfully. "There is one explanation based on human caution and wisdom. I am afraid that you are misunderstood by the very people whose confidence you should seek to cultivate, that is the miners. Some of them don't like you very well. They think that you personally are a hard taskmaster and that the attentions and relief which really come from you in times of need, are bestowed on them by persons who feel that they have to help them because of your failure to do the right thing by them. Why don't you, papa, go right among them and tell them that you are going to do everything you can for them, raise their wages, maybe, and make them love you personally?"

"It isn't my nature, Marion, to do it that way," Mr. Stanlock replied. "There is nothing in the world that would be so distasteful to me as assuming the role of a philanthropist or a hero. It spoils every man to some extent who tries it. Personal vanity is the greatest enemy that man has to guard against. I've guarded myself against it thus far successfully, I think, and I'm not going to let it get me in the future if I can help it."

Marion felt like saying that her father's fear of vanity might some day get him into trouble with his men, but she refrained from so expressing herself. On the occasion before us she recalled that conversation, for she realized that the strike was a result, in part, of the very misunderstanding that she had anticipated. Several clever leaders among the miners had spread the report about that Mr. Stanlock had become immensely wealthy by overworking and underpaying his men, while he caused to be circulated through various channels numerous undetailed reports of his generosity, philanthropy and public spirit.

When she invited the members of Flamingo Camp Fire to be her guests and work with her among the poor and hunger-suffering families of the strikers she did not realize the seriousness of the situation with reference to the feeling of the miners toward her father. Now she felt that the condition of affairs was more than she could cope with and from the day of her arrival home she was constantly in fear lest some dread catastrophe should befall the family because the "biggest man" in Hollyhill kept himself severely fortified against the adulation of his fellow townsmen and the character weakening influence of personal vanity.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XII.

A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.

The Flamingo Camp Fire arrived at the Stanlock home on Friday. Christmas was scheduled on the calendar to fall on the following Wednesday.

From the day of their arrival all of the girls were busy with Christmas preparations. Every one of them, several weeks before, had taken on her the task of making, buying, or assembling from parts purchased a score or more of presents. As one of the chief aims of Hiawatha Institute was to teach wealthy men's daughters how to be economical, it goes without saying that each of these girls had on hand no enviable Winter Task.

Madame Cleaver laid the matter very plainly before her two hundred and forty-odd girls. She had observed that the Christmas problem had a tendency to make some of the students of her school sympathize with Old Scrooge. If Christmas wasn't a humbug it could very easily be made a nuisance.

Madame Cleaver agreed with them in this respect. She told them so. Furthermore, she added:

"I don't wish you to understand that there is anything compulsory in the giving of presents on such occasions. One of the dangers of this sort of thing is that it is likely to become a perfunctory affair with thousands taking part because they feel they have to. Also Christmas is exploited by many people. Their sympathy for the good-fellowship of the occasion is measured largely by the dollars and cents that it pours into their coffers.

"You should see all these drawbacks and then decide for yourselves whether the advantages of Christmas overbalance the drawbacks. For my part I believe that they do and I enjoy the day and the season. But don't take my word for it. Decide for yourselves."

The result was that everybody at the Institute got busy several weeks before the holiday season, and the manner in which the products of girl ingenuity began to pile up must have been satisfying indeed to the head of the school. But the work was not all done when the Camp Fire arrived at Hollyhill, most of the girls still having enough to do to keep them busy almost up to Christmas eve.

Mr. Stanlock advised the girls not to leave the house under any consideration after night, and engaged three detectives, who were given instructions to follow and protect any of Marion's guests who might desire to go shopping or make other journeys about the city in the day time. Automobiles, with drivers, were within ready call for these men at any time. It was understood, also, that no journeys were to be made into the section of the city inhabited by the miners and their families.

Thus far the strike had not been attended by violence of any sort or the destruction of property. The men had simply ceased to work and had submitted their demands to the president of the company. The latter realized at once that the employees were being led by an unusual type of labor agitators, who might be expected to employ unusual methods to gain their ends. The man who appeared to be the leader was as unusual in appearance as he was in methods pursued. He was about thirty-five years old, but looked five or eight years younger. He had first been employed in the mines about six months before as an operator of an electric chain-cutter machine, but he had not long been connected with the work before his influence among the men began to be felt. To the casual observer, he was a quiet sharp-eyed man, who seldom spoke, under ordinary circumstances, unless he was first spoken to. But he got in communication with all his fellow workers in some mysterious manner and before long, in spite of the fact that he was not what is popularly known as a "mixer," everybody from shovelers to machine men knew him as Dave, the chain-cutter man. He had the reputation of being able to do "half again as much work as any man in the slope." Although Mr. Stanlock knew of the influence of this man on the miners almost from the day when the strike was called, the only name by which he heard him spoken of during almost the entire period of the tie-up was "Dave, the chain-cutter man."

Little of special interest relative to the strike, so far as the girls were concerned, took place on the last Saturday and Sunday before Christmas. Mr. Stanlock reported the recent occurrences to the police in detail, but what the police planned to do was not communicated in the form of hint or suggestion to the members of Flamingo Fire. If Mr. Stanlock knew, he kept the information a close secret. In harmony with his habitual reticence on business matters, he sought to avoid further discussion of the subject.

On Saturday, however, there was added to the events of the season one item of great importance, which would have caused Marion no little uneasiness could she have caught more than the most superficial hint concerning it. This hint was so superficial that it consisted merely of a glimpse at the address and postmark on a letter that arrived at the house with the early mail. Marion took the letters and papers from the mail box, and as she was distributing them she observed the Hollyhill postmark on an envelope addressed in a man's handwriting to Helen Nash.

"I wonder who it can be," the hostess mused as she laid the letter on Helen's dresser. "I didn't know that she was on specially friendly terms with any of the boys of Hollyhill. But then you can never know what to expect of her. You find out what she is going to do when she does it."

In spite of the paradox, no truer statement of Helen's nature had ever been made. She said nothing to any of the girls about the letter she had received and if subsequent events had not recalled the incident, Marion probably would have forgotten it entirely.

The three detectives employed by Mr. Stanlock were housed in the now vacant sleeping quarters of the chauffeur over the garage. A buzzer connected with the house and an agreed signal system of "1," "2," "3" served as a means of quick information as to how many of the men were wanted at any given time. Sunday morning another chauffeur, engaged by Mr. Stanlock, arrived and was housed with the detectives.

It was not the duty of the latter, of course, to accompany or follow anybody leaving the house unless they were called. Hence it was quite possible for any of the guests to start out alone and make a trip to any part of the city without the protection of a watchful guard. The possibility that any of the guests might desire to take such a course did not occur to Marion or any other member of the household. It was presumed that everybody would gladly accept such protection on every occasion when it seemed advisable.

As a matter of fact, however, the detectives had little to do on Saturday and Sunday. Only three of the girls made shopping trips on Saturday and all took an automobile ride Sunday afternoon. This was the sum total of their activities away from the Stanlock home, with the exception of one instance, of which there was no hint until late in the afternoon.

About six o'clock Marion suddenly became mindful of the fact that she had not seen Helen since their return from the automobile drive three hours earlier, and she began a search for her. She first went upstairs to her room to see if her friend were there. Probably she was tired and had lain down to rest and fallen asleep. But an inspection of the room failed to discover Helen.

Considerably puzzled, Marion now hunted up every other person in the house and inquired for the missing girl. Not one of them remembered seeing her since the return from the drive. The girl hostess was now thoroughly alarmed and her fears were speedily communicated to the others. Everybody joined in the search and every nook and corner capable of concealing a human form was examined.

Helen Nash was not in the house and there seemed to be no reasonable explanation of her disappearance.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XIII.

"FIND HER, OR I'LL FIND HER MYSELF."

Mr. Stanlock came home from a meeting of mining stockholders about the time when consternation over the disappearance of Helen was at its height. After the particulars of the affair, so far as they were known, had been explained to him, he asked:

"Where are the detectives?"

The question fell with something of a shock on the ears of the assembled searchers who had just completed a second fruitless hunt through the house. Why had they not thought of the trio of "mystery masters" before?

"We ought to have called them in at once," Mrs. Stanlock said. "I suppose they've gone by this time, but I'll see."

She pushed the buzzer button in the hall and soon the new chauffeur appeared at the side entrance. Yes, the detectives had gone, but he knew where they could be found—at the High Peak Athletic Club.

Mr. Stanlock at once called up the club and soon had one of the detectives on the wire.

"Can you men come over at once?" he inquired. "One of the girls has disappeared and we are afraid that something serious has happened."

"Yes, we'll be there right away," was the answer.

Twenty minutes later there was a ring at the door and the three detectives, a tall thin man, a short heavy man, and a squarely built angular man, were ushered in.

The short heavy man, named Meyers, was the most talkative of the three. He put forth a string of questions as to when and where Helen was last seen and what she was doing. Had anybody seen her go out of the house? Nobody had. Was there anything peculiar in her manner in the course of the day? Nothing peculiar. What kind of a girl was she? What were her most noticeable characteristics? Had she any pronounced likes and dislikes? Was she in the habit of doing things just to be contrary? Was she a girl of good judgment, or flighty and light-headed?

These questions brought out nothing of tangible advantage, and No. 1 rested apparently well satisfied with the keenness of his record thus far made. No. 2 now took up the inquiry. He was the squarely built angular fellow with deep-set eyes, quiet demeanor and few words. His first question was:

"Has Miss Nash any other friends living in Hollyhill?"

"No, I think not," Marion replied; "no particular friends."

"None that she ever corresponds with?" persisted the man with the deep-set eyes.

Marion started visibly. Sudden recollection of the letter received by Helen the day before came to her.

"She got a letter postmarked Hollyhill yesterday," the young hostess replied.

"Who was it from?"

"I don't know. I didn't know that she was corresponding with anybody in the town. But the address on the envelope looked as if it was written by a man."

"Do you suppose you could find that letter?"

"I'll go upstairs and look," Marion said, suiting the action to the word.

In a few minutes she returned with a waste paper basket in her hands.

"Helen was sharing my room with me," she said. "A letter has been torn up and thrown in the basket. As I didn't do it, it must be Helen's."

"This begins to look like something," the tall man said with a nod of approval, picking up several bits of paper from the basket. "She's torn it up in pretty small pieces, but if we all get busy we ought to be able to put them together in a short time."

"Let's go out to the dining room table," Mrs. Stanlock proposed, leading the way as she spoke.

In a few moments all were seated around the large fumed oak table from which the spread had been removed as the hard wood surface was much better for the task of piecing the letter together.

It was, indeed, a tedious task, but with so many working together progress was fairly rapid. Within fifteen minutes half a dozen sentence sections of several words each had been joined in their phrase order. These were soon followed by three or four more and presently one of the girls found a connecting link between two sections thus forming a complete sentence. Imagine the thrill that went through everyone as Mr. Stanlock read the following:

"Get your friends out of Hollyhill as soon as possible."

"I bet this letter was written by the same person who wrote the skull-and-cross-bones letter to me," Marion ventured confidently.

"That's the very idea that just occurred to me," Miss Ladd declared as she fitted "no" and "difference" together and then tried to find a connecting edge on the pieces held by her neighbor to the left.

Fortunately the letter had been written on only one side of a large sheet of paper, so that they could be pasted in correlative positions on another sheet provided for the purpose.

Finally the patchwork was completed, in so far as the material at hand made completeness possible. A few of the bits of torn paper were missing, so that a word was wanting here and there in the text, but apparently the idea and purpose of the writer did not suffer from these vacancies. The letter as read at last by Mr. Stanlock was as follows:

"Dear ...r

"You have failed to do what I ... you to do. I told you that it was ... dangerous to bring the girls here. The letter of warning to Miss Stan ... did no good.... I want to warn you again and ... ... last time. Get your friends out of Hollyhill as soon as possible. I won't be responsible for what occurs. It makes no difference if you have given up your original purpose. Some of the men are so worked up that they are liable to do almost anything. If you can't get the rest out of town go yourself, or you may get hurt.

"D...."

"Ah, ha!" exclaimed the short, heavy and loquacious detective, "That explains the whole thing. Miss Nash has gone out of town."

"She hasn't done any such thing," Marion exclaimed indignantly, springing to her feet. "Helen isn't that kind of a girl. I know she is peculiar, but she isn't a coward. It's evident now that she knew something about affairs here that resulted in the sending of that threatening letter to me, and she kept her information secret for some reason. Whatever her reason was, she meant all right."

"Did she at any time urge or suggest that it would not be well for the girls to come here in the holidays?" Mr. Stanlock inquired.

"Never a word," Marion replied, positively. "I admit that once or twice I noticed that there was something peculiar in her manner, and it may have had something to do with her condition back of these developments, but that is all."

"How do you account for her disappearance?" asked Detective Meyer, with puzzled humility.

"I don't pretend to account for it," Marion replied, quickly. "That's a problem for you men to solve. All I know is that Helen did not intentionally desert us. She's gone, and she went for some reason, and I believe that reason is connected with the letter. Now, it's up to you men to find her, and, if you don't find her pretty quick, I'll go and find her myself."

A murmur of applause swept the room.

"We'll do it," declared the tall, thin detective.

"If it's within human power," conditioned the square-built, deep-eyed man.

The talkative gentleman of genius said nothing. All three of them left the house a few minutes later.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XIV.

TRAPPED.

There was little sleep for anyone at the Stanlock home that night. The mystery of the patched-up letter, coupled with Helen's apparently voluntary disappearance and the fear that she had been led into a trap of some sort, in line with the threat contained in the skull-and-cross-bones letter, kept everybody up until long after midnight. Meanwhile, Mr. Stanlock called up the police station and asked the lieutenant in charge to come over and begin work on a new angle of the strike developments.

"One of the girls has disappeared, and we are afraid that something serious has happened," he told the officer over the telephone.

The latter soon drove up to the house in an automobile and was admitted by Mr. Stanlock. The conference lasted half an hour, but before half this time had elapsed Lieut. Larkin had the station on the wire and was giving instructions to the desk sergeant.

To add to the difficulty of the problem, snow began to fall about 5 o'clock, and developed almost into a blizzard in three or four hours.

Next morning the two newspapers of Hollyhill carried big headlines and column-and-a-half stories of the new strike development, suggestive of a far-reaching plot that might result in tragedy. Mr. Stanlock had during the evening received all newspaper calls over a special wire in his private room, so as not to disturb the guests with the publicity end of the affair.

In the afternoon Mrs. Stanlock announced that she, being an officer of the woman's club with an important duty to perform, must attend a committee meeting from 3 until 4:30 o'clock, and she asked Miss Ladd to accompany her. The latter consented, but cautioned the girls against leaving the house, inasmuch as the three detectives were no longer available for guard duty, having been directed to devote their entire time to the search for Helen.

There were now at the house only the twelve remaining Camp Fire Girls and the kitchen maid, Kitty Koepke.

Marion's younger sister and brother were attending a children's afternoon party a few blocks away. The new chauffeur had been summoned by Mrs. Stanlock to take her and Miss Ladd to the club rooms where the committee meeting was to be held.

About 3 o'clock a newspaper photographer and a reporter arrived. The girls allowed a group picture to be taken and the reporter was granted an interview.

Half an hour after the newspaper men departed, there came a ring at the front door. As Mary, the head servant, was out, Marion answered the ring and found at the entrance a woman of middle age, dressed in plain black, who spoke to her, in quick, eager accents, thus:

"Is this Miss Marion Stanlock?"

"It is," the girl answered.

"I am Mrs. Eddy, who moved into one of those vacant houses two blocks from here," the woman explained. "I have some information of interest to you."

"Is it about Helen Nash?" Marion asked, so eagerly that there could be no mistaking the subject nearest her heart.

The woman nodded and smiled, and Marion seized her by the arm and almost dragged her into the hall and thence into the reception room.

"Where is she?—tell me quickly!" Two of the other girls in the drawing-room, hearing these words and surmising their significance, came rushing in and caught the visitor's answer, thus:

"She's over at my house. She came there last night. I had no idea who she was until I saw the articles in the newspaper—I didn't get it until late—and then I came right over."

"But," said Marion, apprehensively, "why didn't she come right home? What was the matter—couldn't she explain who she was?"

"The girl was not in her right mind," Mrs. Eddy said. "She was in a delirium. It was about 10 o'clock at night, and evidently she had been tramping the streets for hours in the storm."

"How is she now? Oh! I must go right to her! Did she get lost in the storm? Girls, girls! Come here! Helen's found! Is she—is she—ill—very ill, Mrs. Eddy?"

"I don't think she is seriously ill," the woman replied, with an expression of sweet encouragement. "I had a doctor call, and he didn't seem to think there was any immediate danger, although she hasn't talked rationally yet. She is in bed, and has considerable fever."

"Would it be all right for me to go and see her—is it against the doctor's orders? I'd be very careful; and, besides, I'm a nurse—in fact, we all are nurses."

"Oh, to be sure—it will be all right for you to come—all of you may come if you wish. You can go in one at a time, quietly. Then a couple of you may remain and help nurse her. I really need help, for I am all alone, and sat up all night with her, and have been close to her most of the day. Perhaps it would be well for you girls to make arrangements for relief nursing watches. You are perfectly welcome to keep her at my home until she is well, if you will relieve me of the necessity of nursing her."

"Come on, girls; get your wraps; we will all go over. It's only a couple of blocks. Hurry, everybody!"

"Wait, and I'll tell Kitty we're going out," Marion said.

She ran through several rooms, calling "Kittie! Kittie!" but received no response.

"I wonder where she is," the hostess said, in a puzzled manner. "Well, we haven't time to find her. Come on."

"I think I saw her go out more than half an hour ago," Harriet Newcomb said. "She called someone up on the telephone, and then put her hat and coat on and went out the side way, and I haven't seen her since."

"That's strange," Marion commented. Then the subject was forgotten. The twelve girls and their leader were walking rapidly toward the place where Mrs. Eddy, the good Samaritan, had taken in and cared for the girl whom every one of them loved as they would have loved a sister.

The house they stopped in front of was rather dingy and forbidding. It was a large brick structure, set back a hundred feet from the street on a plot of ground nearly an acre in extent. Most of the windows were darkened with green blinds two generations out of date.

Mrs. Eddy put a key into the lock and opened the door. Then she stepped aside and motioned the girls to enter, and they did so as if moved by a spell that they were unable to resist. Then the woman herself entered, closed the door and put the key into the lock and turned it. If the twelve Camp Fire Girls had no suspicions as to the genuineness of the motives of the woman up to this time, they had good and sufficient reason to anticipate something dreadful when they saw her take the key from the lock and put it in her coat pocket.

And still if there were any doubts in their minds after this act, they were effectively dispelled by the sound of a man's voice coming through a doorway from a dimly lighted room to the right, speaking thus:

"Now, young ladies, let me warn you to be quiet. You have been led into a trap; but you will not be hurt in any way if you obey orders. One scream from any of you will be followed by a blow with a club that will silence you for a long time—maybe, forever. This way, please. Everybody be quiet and sensible, and you will be well treated."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XV.

A PILE OF SCRAP LUMBER.

Conditions and developments seemed to work favorably for the mysterious trappers of the Camp Fire Girls. In the first place, when Mrs. Stanlock returned home and found the house without an occupant, except Kittie Koepke, who was working away very quietly in the kitchen, it was difficult for her to suspect anything wrong.

"Where are the girls, Kittie?" she inquired, and the other replied, with a suggestion of foreign accent:

"Oh, they just gone out for a walk. They be back soon, I guess."

"I hope they didn't go far," Mrs. Stanlock said, concernedly. "They ought to be very careful. It will be getting dark before very long. It's cloudy and looks like more snow. How long have they been gone?"

"About half an hour," Kittie answered. "I went out to the drug store to get something for my toothache, and when I came back they was gone."

This was the first reference that Mrs. Stanlock heard regarding Kittie's toothache, but she accepted the statement for its face value and waited hopefully for an early return of her daughter and her daughter's guests. Half an hour went by and the girls did not appear. Darkness was now visibly gathering. Mrs. Stanlock was becoming uneasy and called up her husband's office, but Mr. Stanlock had already started for home. By the time he arrived, the good woman was almost prostrated, so rapidly were fear and apprehension taking possession of her.

The big coal operator scented danger at once. Immediately after gathering the principal details of the day's occurrences, he got the police station on the wire and communicated them to the officer in charge.

Drastic measures were resorted to at once. The day shift of uniformed and ununiformed guardians of the law was summoned back to duty, and a posse of available citizens were sworn in.

About 7 o'clock a posse of citizen policemen, led by three or four uniformed members of the regular force, began a canvass of the neighborhood to discover information that might suggest a clew as to the whereabouts of the missing girls. Half an hour later a woman informed one of the canvassers that she had seen eight or ten girls enter the yard of the old Buckholz place between 3 and 4 o'clock, but had not noticed whether they went into the house or not. The man to whom this statement was made blew a whistle as an agreed signal to the other searchers that he had important information and soon a score of them were running toward him from all directions.

A comparison of notes disclosed the fact that another member of the party of canvassers had received a similar statement from another resident in the neighborhood. It was decided, therefore, to delay no further but to proceed at once to the house in question, while one of the men hastened to Mr. Stanlock with news of developments in order that he might be present and direct the next move.

The latter was waiting at home, ready to answer a telephone or personal call from any of the central points of investigation. The nervous strain of the apparent certainty, by this time, that the disappearance of Marion and her guests portended serious developments had compelled Mrs. Stanlock to take to her bed and summon a physician and a nurse. The call from the searchers in the neighborhood took Mr. Stanlock from her bedside, and so speedily did he respond to it that he was at the entrance of the Buckholz house almost as soon as the party of citizens and uniformed policemen.

"Don't hesitate, men," he urged. "I know the owner of this house very well and will take all responsibility for damages on my own shoulders. If the door won't give, break it down."

"Maybe there is somebody at home," Lieutenant Larkin suggested. "Let's ring the bell first"

"Well, come on," said Mr. Stanlock. "We'll soon find out if there's anyone in the house."

He led the way up the weather-beaten but fairly well preserved steps and pulled the knob of the old fashioned doorbell. Then they waited expectantly, straining their ears to catch the sound of the approach of someone within. But no such sound reached them.

It appearing evident now that the house was temporarily without an inmate, the searchers for the thirteen mysteriously vanished girls decided to force their way in. Under ordinary conditions, this act would have been recognized as burglary, but the present circumstances were so extraordinary that legal consequences had no terrors for any of those present. Accordingly an examination was made of the two first story windows, two of which were found unlocked. With the aid of a box discovered under the rear porch, several of the men climbed in one by one and found themselves in a large unfurnished room, architecturally intended, perhaps, as a dining room. Each of the three uniformed policemen carried an electric flashlight and with the aid of these an examination of the house was begun.

But not a trace of the missing girls could be found.

"What next?" one of the men asked.

"The basement," suggested Lieut. Larkin.

Mr. Stanlock opened the door at the head of the stairway and flashed his light down the steps.

"Wait a minute," he said, barring the entrance. "Let's examine the ground as we go. These steps have dust on them, and there are shoe prints in the dust, and, yes, sir, as sure as you are alive, they are the prints of women's shoes, and there are a lot of 'em, unless I'm mistaken. Be careful now, men. Follow me single file and come down along the left side of the stairway as close the wall as possible so as not to spoil those footprints in the dust."

"Look out," said Mr. Stanlock. "There may be some desperate characters down there with guns. Better let me go first—I have most at stake."

"Not much!" replied the lieutenant. "We'll never win the European war without charging the trenches. All I ask is that you get the fellow that gets me. So here goes."

Cautiously he descended the stairs, followed by the five men who had entered the house with him. But their anticipations were groundless. Not a sign of human life did they find in the large, square, deep basement, or cellar, more properly.

Some of the men looked puzzled, Mr. Stanlock was evidently laboring under increasing distress, but Lieut Larkin's curiosity seemed to grow.

"Some queer stories have been told about this place," he said; "and I'm wondering if now is not the time to put them to a test. They are pretty wild stories, almost as wild as haunted house yarns, but there may be thing to them."

"I've heard something about them myself," said Mr. Stanlock. "You refer to the stories about the building of this house over an old mine, I suppose? This cellar was said to have been the mouth of the shaft of the mine enlarged."

"That's it," the lieutenant replied. "Now, let's look about and see if there is anything to it."

He began to flash his light over the floor, walls, and contents of the cellar. The latter consisted principally of barrels, boxes and a nondescript pile of scrap lumber. Most of this was heaped against the south wall.

Presently something in the pile of lumber held the attention of the lieutenant, who began to examine it more closely.

"Look here," he said, addressing Mr. Stanlock. "Do you see any difference between this pile of lumber and that dry goods box over there?"

"I was just noticing that there was a heavy covering of dust on the box and little or none on the top pieces of lumber," the mine owner answered.

"That's just it," continued Lieut. Larkin, "and it can mean only one thing, that this pile of lumber has been moved recently. Now, the question, in view of the fact that the missing girls were seen entering this place today and in view of the shoe prints on the cellar stairway and the fact that they are not in the basement now is, Why?"

"The best way to find out is to move it again," suggested Sergeant Higgins.

"Exactly," agreed his superior officer. "Now, Johnson, you go upstairs and inform the other men what we are doing. We don't want them down here, for there's nothing they can do. Moreover, we don't want any more traveling up and down those steps than is absolutely necessary. Be careful, Johnson, on your way up."

"Excuse me, lieutenant," interposed Mr. Stanlock in a weak voice that bespoke the distress under which he was laboring. "I think I won't remain down here just now. I'll go up and carry that message to the men, if you wish. Let me know as soon as you can what you find."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XVI.

HELEN AND THE STRIKE LEADER'S WIFE.

But what had become of Helen Nash?

It was a very determined little woman who stole out of the Stanlock residence, with the contents of the last threatening letter fresh in her memory, after the return of the members of Flamingo Camp Fire from their Sunday afternoon drive. She walked briskly four blocks east and boarded a street car.

A twenty-minutes' ride took her into the heart of the mining tenement district. Reference to an address memorandum on a slip of paper that she carried in her handbag and a question to the conductor determined where she should get off.

Heaver street, the conductor told her, was three blocks east. With no evidence of a slackening of resolution, she proceeded as directed and was soon searching a long row of cottages, built along almost identical lines, for number 632.

Reaching this number, she ascended a flight of seven or eight steps and gave a quick turn to the old-fashioned fifteen-or-twenty-cent trip-action door bell. A pale-faced, care-worn woman of about 30 years, who might have been mistaken for 40, answered the ring. At sight of the caller she exclaimed in a voice that echoed years of toil and suffering:

"Helen!"

"Nell," was the greeting returned by the caller.

The woman stepped aside, and Helen stepped into a hall, whose sole furnishing consisted of a rag rug on the floor and a cheap hall-tree with a cracked mirror. Evidently it was the chief wardrobe of the house, for upon the twenty or more nails driven into the walls in fairly regular order were articles of both men's and women's wear, most of them bearing evidence of contact with hard labor. From the hall, Helen was conducted into the "front room," the only name it was ever known by, which communicated with the dining room through a cased opening without portieres. These two rooms were about as barely furnished as possible under a minimum of necessary articles and quality. A threadbare ingrain carpet covered the floor of the front room. A few rag rugs hid probably some of the worst gaps in the matching of the yellow-pine floor of the dining room.

As for human life in this house of pinch and poverty, it was hardly vigorous enough to attract attention ahead of the furnishings. Clinging to the faded skirts of their mother were three hungry-eyed anaemic children, a girl and two boys.

"How are you, Nell?" inquired Helen, giving the woman a kiss that seemed almost to frighten her. "It's been two years since I've seen you."

"I'm not very well, Helen," the other replied, wearily. "I've about given up all hope of ever seeing any better days. But what brings you here? I didn't expect ever to see you again."

"Now, Nell, don't talk that way," Helen protested. "You know—or maybe you don't know it—that I would do anything in the world to help you out of this unhappy condition, but Dave's way of looking at things makes it impossible. If you had any vitality I would urge you to leave him and earn your own living."

"But I haven't any left, Helen," said the discouraged woman; "and I don't believe I'll ever recover any. I've rested hope after hope on Dave's assurances of his ability to make a success in life. Really he is a queer genius, and I don't use the word genius entirely with disrespect. In some ways he's clever, very clever, but in other ways he is the most impossible man you ever knew. I believe he is thoroughly honest, but he has no idea of the value of money or what it means to his family. I believe he is by far the strongest leader among the men, but it does neither him nor his family any good. Many a labor leader would make such power and position a source of revenue for himself, but not Dave. Instead, half of his earnings, when he works, are devoted to the labor cause."

"How does he get such a hold on the miners?" Helen inquired.

"By talk, just talk, and really, I must admit he is the cleverest speaker I ever heard. I've seen an audience of a thousand working men and women stand on their tiptoes and cheer him as if they would burst their lungs. I was proud of him on such occasions, but when we got home to our stale bread and soup I could not help wondering if it was not all a dream and I had not just waked up to the reality of things."

"When will he be home?"

"I wish I could tell you," the woman said, helplessly. "He may be here in five minutes and he may not come before 12 or 1 o'clock tonight."

"Right here is where the holiday charity work of the Flamingo Camp Fire begins," she told herself. Then aloud she added:

"I haven't had much to eat since morning, couldn't eat much this noon in my condition of mind, and I'm hungry; what have you in the house for a Sunday evening lunch, Nell?"

"Not much, Helen," was the reply. "Only a half a loaf of rye bread and some corn molasses. The children used to be very fond of that, but they've had it so often since the strike began, that they're almost sick of it."

"Is there any store open near here where I can go and buy something?"

"There's a bakery and delicatessen over on the street where the car line runs. It's probably open now."

"Will I find a drug store over there, too? I want to use the telephone."

"Yes, you'll find a drug store on that street, a block north."

"I'll go at once and you set the table while I'm gone. We'll have a feast that will delight the hearts and stomachs of these little ones."

"God bless you, Helen," were the last words that fell on her ears as she went out.

"I must call up Marion and tell her where I am," she mused as she hastened toward the drug store. "I would have told her where I was going before I left, but I was afraid she wouldn't let me go. Besides, I don't feel like telling her everything yet."

A few minutes later she was in the drug store applying for permission to use the telephone.

"The phone is out of order," the druggist replied.

"Oh," Helen exclaimed in disappointment. "Where is there another in the neighborhood?"

"There is none within half a mile that I know of, except in the saloons," was the reply.

"I can't go there," the girl said desperately. "And I must have a telephone soon. Won't yours be fixed before long?"

"I hope so," said the druggist. "I've sent in a call for a repair man. Can't you come back in an hour or two?"

"Yes, I think so," Helen said, turning to go. "I do hope it is repaired then, because it's very important."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XVII.

HELEN DECLARES HERSELF.

Twenty minutes later Helen returned to her brother's home, her arms loaded with cured meats, bread, a pie, some frosted cup-cakes, a glass of jam, and a bottle of stuffed olives.

"There," she said, as she deposited her bounteous burden on the table. "I couldn't get any tea or sugar or butter, but even without those we can have quite a feast in a very short jiffy."

"I have some tea and some light brown sugar, which the children like on their bread for a change after they've got tired of corn syrup," Mrs. Nash said.

"Good!" exclaimed Helen with genuine enthusiasm. "That's fine! Butter and white sugar are unnecessary luxuries sometimes. Now we'll get busy and will soon be feasting like a royal family."

And there was no mistake in her prediction. True, it was an extremely democratic royalty—proletariat, to be more exact—but no child prince or princess ever enjoyed the richest viands in a king's dining room more than little Margaret, Ernest and Joseph Nash enjoyed the feast spread before them by the girl auntie they had not seen for two years.

The conversation between Helen and Mrs. Nash, interrupted by the former's errand to the delicatessen and drug stores, was taken up again at the table of the royal feast. The way the children laughed and "um-um-ed" over the "goodies" did Helen's heart good and rendered even cheerful her discussion of a distressing subject.

"What in the world ever brought you here, Helen?" was the question put by Mrs. Nash, after full confidence in the sincerity of Helen's mission, whatever it was, had supplied her with courage to converse with her sister-in-law with perfect frankness. "You didn't come to Hollyhill just to visit us, did you?"

"No, I didn't," Helen answered slowly, "and that fact need not hurt your feelings any, Nell. You'll understand what I mean when I've finished my story. I am attending a girl's school at Westmoreland. We are all Camp Fire Girls, and thirteen of us and a guardian came to Hollyhill on a mission in harmony with Camp Fire teachings, that is, to work among the poor and suffering families of the strikers during the holidays."

"What?" exclaimed Mrs. Nash. "Do you mean to tell me that you are one of the girls visiting at the home of Old Stanlock, the mine owner?"

"Yes, I am," Helen replied, looking curiously at the startled woman.

"Then you mustn't stay here any longer. You must hurry right back. You are in great danger, I tell you, very great danger. The fact of your being my husband's sister won't do you any good. There are some bad men around here, and they're as smart as they are bad. Sometimes I wonder if they are really miners, or if they are not an accomplished bunch of professional crooks."

"What makes you think that?" Helen inquired.

"Well, for one reason, I've been told it. But before anybody uttered such a suspicion in my hearing, I suspected something wrong. You see, while Dave seems to be the leader in the strike, he is in fact only a puppet in the hands of a band of the worst kind of crooks, who are using him to keep the miners in line."

"Who are they?" asked Helen.

"I don't know them all. I know of only half a dozen. They have been here at the house a number of times. The man who seems to dominate them all is a man known as 'Gunpowder' Gerry, a powerful, cunning, sly-eyed fellow about 45 years old. He is the business agent of the union and runs everything, although few persons know it. In some mysterious way he has got a very strong hold on Dave and can make him do anything he wants him to."

"Why do you think I am in danger here?" was Helen's next question.

"Because I've heard some talk here about what would happen if you girls attempted to carry out your plans. They had a spy, a chauffeur, in Mr. Stanlock's home, and he found out all about it. Gerry used this to work up bad blood among the strikers, using Dave as his tool as usual. The threat reached my ears that if you girls came down here in Mining Town, you would never get out alive. They think it is just a move to put something over."

"Did you know that Dave came to Westmoreland a few weeks ago and called at the institute to see me?" Helen asked.

"No, did he? What for? I thought he didn't have any use for you. Excuse me for putting it that way, but it's the way he talks."

"I suppose so. That's because we objected so much to his way of doing. But I found out on that occasion that there really was a tender place in his heart for us. He wanted me to do something to call off our vacation plans, as he was afraid something would happen."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I didn't take him very seriously. But when on the day before we started for Hollyhill I happened into the postoffice at Westmoreland and caught him in the act of mailing a letter to Marion Stanlock, I became somewhat alarmed. I forced the truth from him after the letter was mailed. He said he was sending her a threatening letter in the hope that it would break up our plans. I asked him why he came to Westmoreland to mail it. He replied that he was afraid it would be traced to him if he mailed it in Hollyhill. Then he urged me, almost commanded me, to prevent our plans from being carried out. He declared that every one of us would probably be killed if we came. I promised to do my best. I watched Marion, hoping to see her read the threatening letter. I saw it after it was laid on her desk in her room. I saw her glance at it and put it into her handbag before she went to bed. Next morning I waked her early and laid the handbag right before her eyes, hoping she would take the letter out and read it. I did not dare to do anything more, but resolved to watch the events closely. Marion read the letter on the train. It was signed with a skull and cross-bones. We decided to give up our original plans, but came on to Hollyhill."

"What did you hope to accomplish by coming to see Dave?" Mrs. Nash inquired.

"I am going to put the matter right square up to him and demand that he lay bare the whole plot that he has been hinting at. If he doesn't, I'm going to tell him that I am going to lay the whole matter before the police."

"You'll probably have to do it. I don't believe he'll ever betray the men who control his gifts and his weaknesses as they would handle a child."

"He really is a child in some respects, isn't he?"

"Absolutely. In fact, I believe he is half sane and half insane, and he is just smooth enough to conceal his insanity from the miners."

"Have you any objection, Nell, to my going after him good and strong?" Helen asked.

"Not in the least. I wish you would, only I'm afraid the results won't be of much advantage to any of us. And I wish you wouldn't stay here late, for I am afraid to have you start back alone after dark."

"I'll make him take me back," Helen said resolutely. "And I want to reassure you in one respect, if you are afraid of consequences to yourself and the children."

"Oh, don't let that bother you," Mrs. Nash interrupted. "You couldn't make conditions much worse than they are now, and you may accidentally make them better."

"But I have something to say that you ought to know," Helen continued. "When father died, it was generally supposed that he left nothing for his family. For years he drew a good salary as a mining superintendent. Well, he didn't leave much, except about $5,000 insurance, but mother had been saving for years secretly, not even letting him know how much she had. He supposed we were living up his salary of $10,000 a year as we went along, for it wasn't in him to save a cent. Mother took a good deal of delight in her secret. For a while she had done her best to induce him to save something, and then, realizing that her plea was futile, she got busy herself in a systematic manner and in the course of seven or eight years she laid aside something like $25,000.

"But shortly before father's death something happened that caused her to guard her secret up to the present time. A large amount of money was stolen from the company that employed father, and mother realized at once that if it were discovered that she had so much money, suspicion might be directed toward him. In fact, she took me into her confidence only about a year ago.

"Now, mother has often said that she would like to do something for you and the children, but Dave's peculiarities always stood in the way. I just wanted to tell you that mother is able and willing to help you and will not let you or her grandchildren suffer as a result of what I may be forced to do."

The conversation went along in this manner for more than an hour. Neither of the sisters-in-law realized how rapidly the time was flying until dusk fell so heavily that it became necessary to light the gas in order to see each other's faces.

"My, what time is it?" Helen questioned, looking at her watch. "Why, it's nearly seven o'clock, and I haven't telephoned to Marion yet. They'll have the whole police force out looking for me if I don't get her on the wire pretty soon. I'll run over and see if that phone is repaired yet. If it isn't I'll have to take a car and ride on to the next drug store; but I'll be back before very long."

"I wish you wouldn't come back tonight, Helen," Mrs. Nash pleaded. "I'm so afraid of those men. Why not go straight to Stanlocks' and send word to Dave that you wish to meet him somewhere tomorrow?"

"I'd rather handle it this way," the girl answered a little stubbornly. "I tell you what I'll do—I'll have them send the chauffeur with the automobile over here after me. That'll be the best way."

With this reassuring announcement, Helen put on her coat and hat and went out. But she would not have proceeded so confidently if she could have caught a glimpse of the figure of a man dashing far up the alley in the rear and have realized that this man had crouched in an eavesdropping attitude for an hour or more at the kitchen door and overheard most of the conversation between her and her sister-in-law.

One, two blocks he ran, then through a gateway and into a house similar to nearly every other house in the street. Two men, a woman, and a child 10 years old looked expectantly toward him as he entered.

"All ready!" cried the latter. "She's coming down the street on this side. Hurry up, Lizzie. Get your coat and hood on. Remember what you are to say: father gone, mother sick. If she won't come in with a little begging, make a big fuss, cry and plead for all you're worth. There you are, all ready. Remember, you get a new coat if you bring her in here."

The speaker opened the door and almost shoved the pale-faced, trembling child out upon her strange mission.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XVIII.

HELEN IN THE MOUNTAINS.

It was snowing. The flakes that fell were not large fluffy ones; they were small and compact, so that as the northwest wind drove them into Helen's face, she realized that she was being pelted with something more substantial than eiderdown.

The severity of the storm startled the girl. It spurred her to a fuller consciousness of her obligation to her friends, that she remove from their minds all occasion for worry as to her whereabouts as soon as possible.

Putting her muff up to shield her face from the cutting blast, Helen set out bravely up the street. She was not a timid or timorous girl. In fact, the words of warning uttered by her sister-in-law had made no lasting impression on her mind, so far as her own personal safety was concerned. She scarcely thought of looking out for danger from any human agency as she left the house.

As the storm was beating into her face, she did not attempt to look ahead much farther than each step as it was taken. It was necessary for her to lean forward slightly and push her head, as it were, right into the storm, and before she had reached the nearest corner it became evident that she must undergo no little inconvenience, if not actual suffering, before her evening's mission were completed.

"Well, maybe this exercise will give me just the life I need to talk real business to Dave when he comes," she mused, punctuating her conjecture with a gasp or two as she fought against a gust of wind that forced her almost to a standstill. Winning this skirmish with the storm, she pressed forward again, when suddenly another gasp was forced from her by an entirely different cause. She almost stumbled over an object directly in her way, and as she recovered her equilibrium she recognized before her the form of a small girl scantily clad in a short-sleeved coat much too small for her and a hood that came down scarcely far enough to cover her ears. Her hands were bare and she held them up pitifully before the comfortably—to her richly—clad maiden so out of her element in this poverty-stricken district.

"Please, Miss," the girl pleaded; "won't you come and help me? Ma's sick—she fainted—and pa's gone away. I'm all alone with her. Ma's down on the floor an' don't move—I'm afraid she's dead. Oh, please do come, Miss, just a minute, and—"

"Where do you live?" Helen interrupted, indicating by her tone of sympathy that she would do as requested.

"Right there," the little girl replied, pointing with her hand toward one of the houses a short distance ahead. "Come on, please. Just a minute—help me get ma on the bed. I'll find one of the neighbors to help after that."

"All right, go ahead," Helen directed.

"It seems that I am fated to do at least a little of the work that we set out to do, but were prevented from doing by some unfriendly interests. It's a pity some of these people are so prejudiced, for we could really do a lot for them."

Helen's small conductress led the way to the entrance of a miner's cottage that, to all outward appearance from the front, was dark within.

"Haven't you any light?" she asked a little apprehensively, drawing back as if hesitating to enter.

"Oh, yes," the other replied almost eagerly, it seemed. "There's a lamp burning in the kitchen, and I'll light the gas in the front room. Come on, please."

"Where is your mother?"

"She's layin' down on the floor in the kitchen. Come on, I've got a match. I'll light the gas in the front room."

If Helen had obeyed a strong impulse that was tugging within her to hold her back, she would have refused to enter. Perhaps the reason she did not obey that impulse was the fact that a desperate effort to think of another reasonable method of procedure was fruitless and she must either go ahead as she had started or turn away in confusion and leave the little girl in her distress and without an explanation. The latter opened the door and Helen followed her inside.

It was difficult for the visiting Camp Fire girl to figure out any reason why she should be fearful of anything this slip of a child might do, and yet the first act of the latter after they were inside sent through her a chill of terror. Slipping around her like an eel, the little emissary of trouble pushed the door to and turned the key in the lock. Helen was certain also that she heard the key withdrawn from the lock.

Still her conductress, clever little confidence girl that she was, spoke words of reassurance that dispelled some of her victim's fears.

"Wait," she said; "I dropped my match. I'll have to go in the kitchen for another."

Helen's eyes followed the dim form of the child, as the latter moved across the room, and observed for the first time a line of light under what appeared to be a door between the front room and the kitchen. A moment later the door swung open, and she was considerably relieved when she saw lying on the floor the apparently limp and unconscious form of a woman.

Instantly the rescuer's Camp Fire training in the reviving of a person from a faint stimulated in her a sort of professional interest in the task before her, and she started forward to begin work at once. First she must loosen her patient's clothing to make it as easy as possible for her to breathe. Then she must get her in a supine position with her head slightly lower than any other part of her body in order that the brain might get a plentiful supply of blood. The air in the house was heavy and stuffy—the front and rear doors must be thrown open. She must dash cold water upon the face and chest of the patient and rub her limbs toward her body. She ought to have some smelling salts or ammonia, but as these were lacking she must get along without them, unless the daughter of the unconscious woman were able to supply something of the sort.

These things flashed through Helen's well-trained mind as she moved rapidly toward the kitchen. All apprehension of treachery left her as she beheld the evidence corroborating the story of distress that had brought her into the house. Then suddenly the whole apparent situation was transformed into one of the most terrifying character.

A slight noise to her right caused her to turn. Then a piercing scream escaped her lips as she saw a door open and beheld the dim outlines of two burly men approaching her. At the sound of her cry of alarm, they dashed forward like two wild beasts.

The first one seized her around the neck to shut off further alarm. As those muscular fingers closed in upon her throat, it seemed suddenly as if her head were about to burst. Then as the thumping in her ears almost completed the deadening of her auditory nerves, she indistinctly heard these words uttered in a hoarse voice:

"Look out, Bill; don't kill her."

As if surprised back into his senses, "Bill" loosened his hold on Helen's throat. She did not struggle or attempt to cry out again. Evidently the purpose of the ruffians did not contemplate murder, and she realized that there was no wisdom in anything but submission on her part now.

But she was not given time to recover completely before the next move of her captors was made. While one of them held her in a vise-like grip, the other shoved a gag into her mouth and tied the attached strings tightly around the base of her head. Then he bound her hands together in front of her with a strip of cloth.

"There," said the man whom the other had addressed as Bill, "you set down in that chair and keep still and you won't get hurt. But the instant you go to makin' any racket you're liable to breathe your last. All right, Jake, go and get the machine."

"Jake!" The exclamation, though not uttered, was real enough in her mind. Even with the deafening pulse of choking confusion in her head, it had seemed that there was something familiar in the man's voice when he warned "Bill" not to kill her. Was it possible that this was Mr. Stanlock's former automobile driver?

Jake went out the back way, closing the door between the front room and the kitchen as he went. Helen was now left alone in darkness with Bill, who, she thankfully observed, seemed disposed to pay no attention to her so long as she remained quietly in the old loose-jointed rockingchair in which she was seated.

Ten minutes later an automobile drove up in front of the house and Jake reappeared.

"It's almost stopped snowing, luckily," he remarked, "or we'd have our troubles makin' this trip tonight. A little more snow and a little more drifting and we'd be in a pretty pickle."

Helen was certain she recognized Jake's voice now. How she wished she could get a glimpse of his face in even the poorest candle light.

Bill now threw a large shawl over her head and brought it around so that it concealed both the gag over her mouth and the rag manacle on her wrists. Then he pinned it carefully so that it might not slip awry, and ordered her to go with him quietly out to the automobile. Jake had just made an inspection up and down the street and reported the coast clear.

"Now, mind you, young lady," Bill warned significantly; "not a word or a wiggle out o' the ordinary or you'll get your final choke, and you know what that means."

Yes, Helen knew, and she had no intention of futilely provoking a repetition of such punishment. She accompanied her captors submissively and was assisted into the machine. Then something happened which might almost be said to have delighted her if it were not for the strain of benumbing fear that was gripping her.

Jake went around in front of the machine to crank it. For one moment the strong acetylene light from one of the lamps fell full upon his face. Helen recognized it. Her surmise as to his identity was not a mistake.

A minute later the automobile was traveling at a high rate of speed over the streets. Ten minutes later it passed the city limits and was kicking the three inches of snow up along a country highway. On, on it sped, one mile, two miles, on, on, until the probable distance Helen was unable to conjecture, on, on, over smooth roads and rough roads, up hill and down hill, into the mountains. Then suddenly "Bill," who sat in the seat beside her, pulled a light-weight muffler from his pocket and tied it over Helen's eyes, saying coarsely:

"Not that I'm afraid you'll do any mischief with those pretty eyes of yours, but we may as well guard against accidents. You couldn't trace this route again, anyway, could you?"

Helen did not attempt to answer with either a shake or a nod of her head. She was disappointed at the act of her captor in blindfolding her, for she had been watching their course as closely as possible in order to photograph it upon her mind for future reference.

Jake was a good driver—that much must be said for him; and yet, after they struck the mountain road the progress was much slower. From the time when her eyes were bandaged, Helen's only means of determining the character of the road over which they were traveling was the speed or slowness of the automobile. Nor could she compute satisfactorily the time that passed during the rest of the trip.

But it ended at last. The machine stopped, Helen knew not where, and she was assisted out by the two men, who led her, still blindfolded, along a fairly smooth trail, up the side of a mountain or steep hill, then along a fairly level stretch, until at last the prisoner knew that she was passing under a canopy or roof of some sort, for there was no snow under foot. Moreover their footfalls produced a sound, somewhat of the nature of a soft resonant reverberation of a million tiny echoes.

But presently they were out in the open again, as evidenced by the snow and the brisker atmosphere, and Helen shrewdly observed to herself:

"That was a tunnel, I bet anything."

Two hundred feet farther up another gentle incline they reached a place of habitation and entered. Helen had no idea as to the appearance of the exterior, but when the bandage was removed from her eyes, and she was able to look about her, she made a clever surmise, not very far from the truth, that she was in a log cabin.

Every inch of the walls and ceiling, except the windows and doors, was plastered. The doors and windows were fitted in the crudest kind of casing. A few unframed, colored pictures were pasted on the walls. The furniture of the room consisted of a few chairs, a table and an old trunk. A kerosene lamp on the table lighted the room.

"Here's one of them, Mag," said Bill, addressing a large, coarse featured, but remarkably shrewd-eyed woman who opened the door and received them. "Can you keep her safe?"

"You bet your bottom dollar I can keep her safe as long as there is any dough in it for me," was the reply in almost a man's voice.

"Well, get into good practice on this one a-keepin' prisoners," the first speaker advised. "We're goin' to have a dozen more here before long, and then you will have some job."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XIX.

THE SUBTERRANEAN AVENUE.

For more than half an hour Mr. Stanlock waited upstairs nervously, eagerly, expectantly, apprehensively, for a report from Lieut. Larkin and the four men who remained in the cellar of the Buchholz house to move the pile of scrap lumber, under which it was suspected might be found a clew as to the whereabouts of the missing twelve girls. Interest in the search within the building had suspended other activities in the neighborhood, as it was felt that further progress must depend upon results at this point.

So the score or more of uniformed and citizen policemen waited as patiently as they could in or around the house of mystery, becoming more and more impatient as the minutes grew into the twenties and then the thirties, and still nobody came upstairs to announce indications of success or failure. The noise of the striking pieces of lumber against one another had not been heard for more than twenty minutes. In fact, no sound of any kind came up the cellarway following the first quarter of an hour of rapid labor on the part of the five active searchers below.

At last one of the men, more nervously eager for information than the rest, shouted down the cellarway to the lieutenant, inquiring how he and his helpers were getting on. There was no answer.

He shouted again. Still no reply. Then he announced his intention to descend into the cellar to investigate.

"Wait," said Mr. Stanlock. "There are some tracks in the dust on the steps, and Lieut. Larkin doesn't want them disturbed. Let me go."

Although his apprehensions had not diminished, the mine owner's nerve was considerably strengthened by this time, perhaps as a result of his return from a stuffy basement atmosphere into a region of better ventilation. As he started down the steps with the flashlight of one of the policemen in his hand, he was surprised to feel a strong current of wind blowing upward into his face.

"They must have opened one of the windows," he surmised; but he quickly dismissed the suggestion after flashing his light around the cellar. The pile of lumber had been moved to the opposite side and in the section of the floor it had formerly occupied was a hole three feet in diameter.

"That's where the wind comes from," Mr. Stanlock decided. "It's the mouth of the old mine we used to hear about years ago. But where's the other opening? Funny nobody knows about that. This end has been covered up with that old heavy door and concealed with a layer of earth. When our men moved the pile of lumber, they observed that the earth had been disturbed recently and shoveled it away and found this hole."

Mr. Stanlock directed the rays of light into the hole and discovered a flight of steps cut in the hard clay.

"The lieutenant and his men are down in there," he concluded. "I think I'll follow them."

He descended cautiously into the hole. Half a dozen irregularly formed steps brought him to a slope leading downward on an inclined plane of six or seven degrees. He was astonished at the degree of preservation of the walls, ceiling, and supports, considering the years that had elapsed since the mine was last worked. The passage continued as a downward slope for about fifty yards and then became almost level for a like distance. Only in two places had the walls or ceiling fallen in to any considerable extent, and in neither of those places was the obstruction so great as to constitute an impassable barrier.

As he proceeded, Mr. Stanlock peered ahead anxiously, in the hope that he would discover the lights of Lieutenant Larkin and his companions. But he walked nearly 100 yards through an irregular and characteristically jagged passage before he caught sight of anything indicating that there was anybody besides himself in the abandoned mine. Then suddenly, rounding a sharp point he came upon the advance party of searchers approaching him.

"What did you find?" the mine owner inquired before any surprise greetings could be exchanged. "There's another outlet to this place somewhere, isn't there?"

"Yes, there is," was the reply of the officer in charge. "This gallery runs on for another hundred yards, piercing Holly Hill right through the center. You know the bluff and the rocky slope behind the old mill. Well, it seems that this mine was cut right through at that point, but there was a cave-in that filled up that opening. These rascals that kidnapped the girls evidently were associated with the people that rented the Buchholz place and cut the passage through. The girls have been here all right, but they're gone. They've been taken out of this end of the mine and spirited away in some manner. This means that the scoundrels have a larger and more effective organization than we have ever suspected. Such a case of wholesale kidnapping was never heard of before."

"How can you tell they passed through here?" Mr. Stanlock asked.

"By this principally," the lieutenant answered, holding up a woman's handkerchief that he had picked up; "and by the fact that there is a trail in the snow from the opening of the mine to the alley behind the old mill."

Mr. Stanlock's face shone deathly pale in the glare of the flash lights. The new element of suspense had brought him again to the danger-point of a collapse that had compelled him to withdraw from the active search nearly an hour before.

His voice reflected the distressing strain under which he was laboring as he put his next question:

"What became of them then?"

"That's the problem we've got to solve," Larkin replied. "Apparently they were loaded in automobiles and rushed off to some retreat of the scoundrels."

"How in the world could they do it without somebody's seeing or hearing what was going on?"

"Oh," said the lieutenant without a suggestion of doubt in his voice; "that wasn't very difficult if there were enough of them working together. The evidence of cleverness and skill is not nearly so much in the handling of this affair at the mill end of the mine as at the house end. That was a mighty smooth piece of work, getting all of those girls into that old house, however it was done. Mark my word, you'll find that a very clever trap was set for them. But come on, we've got to get busy before the snow makes it impossible to follow them."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XX.

TWELVE GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS.

Ethel Zimmerman and Ernestine Johnson fainted. All of the rest of the twelve girls who had been decoyed into the Buchholz house by the "sympathetic Mrs. Eddy" were thrown into a panic. And the terror of the situation was not mollified in the least by the sudden appearance on the scene of five men.

Where the men came from so suddenly was not at all clear. Undoubtedly they had been hidden somewhere, but that place could not be determined, for none of the girls remembered from what direction they had made their appearance, north, south, east, west, up, or down. They were just there, and that was all there was to it.

The men did not look like ruffians exactly, although they were not clad in "gentlemen's clothes." The girls were huddled together in the dark scantily-furnished front room, which at some time probably had served the purpose of a combined parlor and reception room. The next apartment, probably designed as a living room, was lighted by a single gas jet turned low.

Ethel and Ernestine fainted in the midst of the address of warning and command from the spokesman of the plotters. This was a signal for a rally to their aid on the part of the other Camp Fire Girls best gifted with presence of mind. Marion led this move, and was quickly assisted by Ruth Hazelton, Julietta Hyde, and Marie Crismore. No objection was offered by the men to this proceeding, as they were intelligent enough to realize that the success of their plot depended largely on a careful guard against a noisy panic that would attract attention from without.

"Somebody get some water quick," Marion directed, as she proceeded to go through the reviving formula in which all of them had been thoroughly drilled.

"I'll get some," "Mrs. Eddy" volunteered, indicating by her offer and actions that she was an efficient ally of the kidnappers. She hastened into the kitchen and soon returned with a large dipper of water. Marion took it from her and sprinkled some of the liquid on the faces of the unconscious girls. The latter quickly recovered and sat up.

But meanwhile the five men were not idle. The leader addressed the girls again with more gentle words and manner, realizing, as only an intelligent criminal may do, that a confidence man's method is the best method for producing a desired illegal effect. In a degree, he was successful, attempting to reassure the captives in the following manner:

"Now, girls, you have nothing to fear from us, if you obey orders. We don't wish to harm a hair on any of your heads. We are merely determined to get what we have set out for, and we are going to use you to help us get it. If you try to balk our purpose, you must take the consequences. Otherwise you will suffer only such inconveniences as go naturally with the experience of being kidnapped. And try to realize this, that being kidnapped isn't such a terrible thing if you are in the custody of gentlemen kidnappers. That's what we are—gentlemen kidnappers. All we ask of you is that you prove yourselves to be what gentlemen kidnappers prefer above all others, namely, real ladylike prisoners.

"Now," he added after a pause during which he surveyed his audience as if to determine the effect of his words; "as soon as the two young ladies who were so unfortunate as to make the mistake of connecting a tragic prospect with this affair have fully recovered, we will proceed."

"That fellow is disguised," declared Marion in a whisper to the girls nearest her. "In fact, all of them are. Observe that every one of them wears a beard, moustache or short side whiskers. Watch their eyes and mouths and every expression on their faces so that we may be able to identify them if we are ever called upon to do so."

"Now, girls," said the spokesman with well simulated gentleness, "no more of that. We don't want to be unduly rude with you, but if there is any more whispering, we'll have to resort to measures that will make it impossible. Now, I think you are all ready, so just follow the leader and some of us will bring up the rear. We will proceed first into the basement."

Tremblingly the twelve Camp Fire Girls followed two of the men down the cellar steps. It was evident to them that resistance would be worse than useless. A single blow from the fist of one of those powerful men would stun any of the girls, if it did not knock her unconscious. In fact their captors could make quick work of them if necessary, and, cooped up as they were in this isolated prison, they could scarcely hope to send forth an effective cry of distress before they were rendered physically incapable of sounding further alarm.

All of the "gentlemen kidnappers" were supplied with electric flash lights, with which they illuminated the cellar and revealed to their captives a hole three feet in diameter in the ground floor and seemingly a flight of steps leading downward.

"Don't get scared, young ladies," advised the "gentlemanly leader" of the "gentleman kidnappers" softly. "That hole is merely the mouth of an old coal mine. We will conduct you through the mine to the other end, which is concealed from public view at a distance, and there we will find four automobiles waiting for you. Lead the way, comrad kidnappers."

The two head men descended into the hole, and the girls followed Indian file. The spokesman and one other man descended last as a rear guard. One of the men remained in the cellar with "Mrs. Eddy" and together they hurriedly replaced the old door over the mouth of the mine, shoveled some loose earth over this and then covered the earth with eight or ten thicknesses of scrap lumber loosely tossed in a heap.

Meanwhile the girls, guided by the lights ahead and aided by the two lights behind, which were directed helpfully along their path, made their way laboriously down the slope and along the many-angled gallery to the opening at the other side of Holly Hill, as the high, rounded elevation on and around which the city was built was called. Under different circumstances undoubtedly they would have been much interested in this experience as a subterranean exploration. And they had all the time they might need for such exploration, for the dusk of evening had not yet developed into darkness and they had to wait in the mine over an hour before it was deemed safe to venture out with the captives.

Near the opening at the foot of the bluff behind the abandoned flour mill, gags were tied tightly over the girls' mouths and their hands were bound in front of them, and they were assisted one by one down a gradual, but rough, incline and into the waiting machines. Snow falling in millions of huge flakes, a fact that evidently caused the kidnappers more worry than the possibility of detection by persons in the vicinity, for remarks escaped some of them relative to the importance of haste before the roads became impassable to automobiles. But the storm served them one good purpose if it menaced them in another respect. It rendered the darkness of the night more impenetrable and kept the streets almost free of pedestrians. Moreover, the plotters were well supplied with means and methods of guarding against escape or rescue. The gags and cloth manacles were so well made that one might have suspected them of being products of a manual training school of burglars' wives. During the passage from the mine to the automobiles each of the girls wore a shawl thrown over her head and pinned close in front, thus concealing both the gags and the manacled condition of their hands.

At last they were all in the machines, each of which was in charge of a driver. Three of the girls were put into each automobile and one of the men got in with them to see that their conduct was as per scheduled program. Then the start was made.

On, on they went, out into the country and along a road that Marion knew led into the heart of the mountains. She could see the dim, shadowy form of High Peak in the distance. Meanwhile, as she peered out eagerly into the darkness with an irrational longing for rescue from some miraculous source—for this was the only kind of rescue that seemed possible under the circumstances—she kept working at the bonds about her wrists and the gag in her mouth slyly and without obvious effort, until with joy she realized that she was at least partly successful.

"I am certain I could shove that thing right out of my mouth and give the most piercing scream ever heard if somebody would only come along and hear me," she told herself.

The snow kept on falling heavily, much to the alarm of the kidnappers and the joy of the kidnapped, but the automobiles reached the mountains before there was any serious delay. It looked indeed as if the trip would be successful from the point of view of the captors of the Camp Fire Girls. But at last the snow became so deep that the girls could feel that the automobiles were laboring under almost insurmountable difficulties. Marion heard several curses uttered by the chauffeur, and the man inside the car echoed them once or twice. Finally the automobile came to a full stop and the driver could force it along no further. A consultation, with all three of the men taking part, was held.

In the midst of their debate, something happened that changed the aspect of things almost as completely as might have been accomplished if Marion's dream of a miraculous rescue had been realized. Other persons were on the scene and they were talking to the driver, inquiring if they could be of any assistance.

"We're a patrol of Boy Scouts," one of the new arrivals said. "We've lost our way, but that doesn't need hinder our helping you out of your scrape. Maybe you can direct us how to find our way back."

Marion never felt a more intense thrill in her life than she felt at the sound of that voice. She looked out of the window and saw a group of eight or ten boys, each of them carrying a gun, close to the automobile.

With an effort that had behind it all of the power of the most joyous impulse of her life, she swung her bound clinched fists right through the pane of glass, pushed the gag from her mouth, and shouted:

"Clifford! Clifford! This is Marion. All of us girls are being kidnapped by these men. Shoot these rascals and shoot to kill."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXI.

THIRTEEN GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS.

Marion's plea for aid did not reach Clifford and the other Boy Scouts to whom it was addressed without interruption. The latter half of it came in jerked and disjointed phrases, and the tone of utterance was one of extreme fear and distress. Clifford and Ernie Hunter, the leader of the patrol, although amazed beyond description, realized that this appeal for assistance was no idle one, and it was up to them to do something quickly or action on their part might soon be too late.

"You boys take care of the men in front, and Clif and I will settle this affair back here," Ernie shouted. "Don't let them escape."

With these words, the patrol leader seized the latch of the nearest auto door and pressed down on it. As he did this, the door flew open with a heavy swing, and Ernie jumped aside just in time to ward off a body-lunge blow from the fist of a man who sprang out of the machine like a beast leaping with all fours.

In less time than it takes to tell it, two of the men had broken through the cordon of Boy Scouts around the automobile and disappeared in the darkness. The third, Mr. Stanlock's chauffeur, was not so desperately courageous. The menace of two or three gun muzzles held within a few feet of his face was more than he cared to oppose, so he remained a prisoner.

"Look out, boys," called out Hazel Edwards. "There are three more automobiles coming along behind with desperate men in them. Each of those autos has three girl prisoners in charge of two men, one of them the driver."

"Miles, you and Hal and Jerry stay here and guard the prisoner and protect the girls against those rascals if they return," Ernie directed. "The rest of us will run back a short distance and meet the next machine before they suspect something wrong."

As he finished speaking, Ernie led the way, followed by four other boys, back through the snow twenty or thirty yards, and then stopped and listened. A short distance further, they heard a sound the cause of which could not be mistaken. It was the rapid, pulsating chug-chug of an automobile engine. They waited a few minutes, but it appeared to be coming no nearer.

"The snow has stopped this one, too," said Clifford. "Come on and we'll give them a surprise."

A few paces farther brought the boys in view of a machine with the engine running idle and no driver visible in front. Naturally this made them suspicious and a halt was called for a little circumspection. Then, carefully, cautiously, they advanced toward the automobile, keeping nervous watch on all sides to avoid a surprise.

They reached the machine, which they had been able to locate by the noise of the engine, and found it also deserted, save for the three prisoners, bound and gagged, in the car. While the other four in the party of rescuers kept watch against a surprise, Clifford cut the bonds on the wrists of the girls and removed the gags from their mouths.

"Where did the villains in charge of this car go?" was the first question he put to the released prisoners.

"They skipped," replied Violet Munday. "Two men who had been in the machine ahead came back and said the game was up, that they were discovered by a force of Boy Scouts armed with guns and they couldn't afford to put up a fight, for even if they won, the whole country would be aroused and they couldn't hope to carry out their original plans. They went back to warn the other men. No doubt you'll find the other machines abandoned, too."

"All right," said Ernie; "you girls stay here in the car and keep warm. We'll be back as soon as we can find the others."

The boys found the other two automobiles also abandoned and released six more Camp Fire prisoners.

"Now let's return and get the head auto started back first," Ernie proposed.

This plan was adopted. Arrived at the machine in which Marion, Hazel and Julietta had been prison-passengers, they found a new and important development in affairs. Jake, the chauffeur, had confessed. He had offered to conduct the boys to Helen's place of detention and effect her release if the boys would let him go. It was less than half a mile away. The boys agreed. Clifford suggested that the girls remain in the automobile while the Scouts made the proposed raid, but they objected strenuously.

In a short time the rest of the girls were brought forward, informed of the plan, and the start was made. All of the girls insisted on taking part in the expedition. In less than half an hour they were at the door of Helen's prison, where Jake gave the "open sesame" knock.

An uncouth woman opened the door. Behind her stood a man, who proved to be her husband. Jake pushed the astonished pair aside, and went directly to the side of the room opposite the entrance and lifted a bar across a door opening into another department. As he opened this door, Marion rushed forward and was first to greet a slender, pale-faced girl, who stepped out eagerly toward her rescuers.

"Helen!" cried the girls in a chorus.

Jake slipped out and was seen no more.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXII.

A SLEIGHRIDE HOME.

That was a meeting not soon to be forgotten. It was a signal for the casting away of every element of secrecy, and Helen told her story.

She told the story of her brother, of his sickness when a child, of the resultant distortion of his character into that of a man of strange and incongruous genius and weakness, and of the embarrassment he had caused her and her mother. He, it was, she said, who had written the skull-and-cross-bones letter.

"Who wrote the other anonymous letter that you received at the Institute?" Hazel Edwards inquired.

"I don't know," Helen replied with a faint smile. "Perhaps these boys can answer that question."

"I must plead guilty to that," announced Clifford, advancing with a bow.

"But what's the surprise you were going to spring?" inquired Ruth Hazelton, mischievously. "Is this it?"

"Now, never you mind," said Clifford. "Things didn't go just right. This kidnapping affair interfered with our plans, and they are hereby called off. We didn't want you to know we were here."

Two of the boys had been dispatched as messengers to Hollyhill for vehicles to take the girls back to Marion's home. About 2 o'clock in the morning Mr. Stanlock, several of his neighbors, and three policemen, led by the two Scout messengers, burst into the room and announced that they had brought three bob-sleds to give them all a sleighride.

And a glorious sleighride home it was for all except the two prisoners, whom the police took into custody.

* * * * *

The story of the CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS is told, all but the subtitle, "A Christmas Success Against Odds." There was a real success in store for them. The police made a raid, but found that the criminal element that had gained a throttle hold on the labor organization in the mines had cleared out so clean that not a living vestige of them could be discovered. The way was now clear, and the Camp Fire Girls carried out their original plans, successfully and much to the benefit of the poverty stricken families of the strikers.

But the history of Flamingo Camp Fire is by no means complete with this narrative. It seemed to be a peculiar lot of these girls to become associated or in touch with events of novel, interesting, and sometimes thrilling character, and those who would follow their further experiences along these lines should read the second volume of this series, entitled:

CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE COUNTRY;

or

The Secret Aunt Hannah Forgot.

THE END