Johnston Annie Fellows
Georgina of the Rainbows

CHAPTER XVII
IN THE KEEPING OF THE DUNES

SCARCELY had Georgina convinced herself by the calendar that it had been only one short week since Barby went away instead of the endlessly long time it seemed, than a letter was brought in to her.

"My Dear Little Rainbow-maker," it began.

"You are surely a prism your own self, for you have made a blessed bright spot in the world for me, ever since you came into it. I read your letter to papa, telling all about your birthday and the prism Uncle Darcy gave you. It cheered him up wonderfully. I was so proud of you when he said it was a fine letter, and that he'd have to engage you as a special correspondent on his paper some day.

"At first the doctors thought his sight was entirely destroyed, by the flying glass of the broken windshield, but now they are beginning to hope that one eye at least may be saved, and possibly the other. Papa is very doubtful about it himself, and gets very despondent at times. He had just been having an especially blue morning when your letter was brought in, and he said, when I read it:

"'That is a good line to live by, daughter,' and he had me get out his volume of Milton and read the whole sonnet that the line is taken from. The fact that Milton was blind when he wrote it made it specially interesting to him.

"He and mamma both need me sorely now for a little while, Baby dear, and if you can keep busy and happy without me I'll stay away a couple of weeks longer and help take him home to Kentucky, but I can't be contented to stay unless you send me a postal every day. If nothing more is on it than your name, written by your own little fingers, it will put a rainbow around my troubles and help me to be contented away from you."

Georgina spent the rest of the morning answering it. She had a feeling that she must make up for her father's neglect as a correspondent, by writing often herself. Maybe the family at Grandfather Shirley's wouldn't notice that there was never any letter with a Chinese stamp on it, addressed in a man's big hand in Barby's pile of mail, if there were others for her to smile over.

It had been four months since the last one came. Georgina had kept careful count, although she had not betrayed her interest except in the wistful way she watched Barby when the postman came. It made her throat ache to see that little shadow of disappointment creep into Barby's lovely gray eyes and then see her turn away with her lips pressed together tight for a moment before she began to hum or speak brightly about something else. No Chinese letter had come in her absence to be forwarded.

Georgina wished her father could know how very much Barby cared about hearing from him. Maybe if his attention were called to it he would write oftener. If the editor of a big newspaper like Grandfather Shirley, thought her letters were good enough to print, maybe her father might pay attention to one of them. A resolve to write to him some day began to shape itself in her mind.

She would have been surprised could she have known that already one of her epistles was on its way to him. Barby had sent him the "rainbow letter." For Barby had not drawn off silent and hurt when his letters ceased to come, as many a woman would have done.

"Away off there in the interior he has missed the mails," she told herself. "Or the messenger he trusted may have failed to post his letters, or he may be ill. I'll not judge him until I know."

After Georgina's letter came she resolutely put her forebodings and misgivings aside many a time, prompted by it to steer onward so steadily that hope must do as Uncle Darcy said, "make rainbows even of her tears."

Georgina wrote on until dinner time, telling all about the way she had spent her birthday dollar. After dinner when the sunshine had dried all traces of the previous night's rain, she persuaded Tippy that she was entirely over the effects of the gas, and perfectly able to go down street and select the picture postals with which to conduct her daily correspondence.

Richard joined her as she passed the bungalow. They made a thrilling afternoon for themselves by whispering to each other whenever any strange-looking person passed them, "S'pose that was the owner of the pouch and he was looking for us." The dread of their sin finding them out walked like a silent-footed ghost beside them all the way, making the two pairs of brown eyes steal furtive glances at each other now and then, and delicious little shivers of apprehension creep up and down their backs.

Whether it was the passing of the unseasonable weather into hot July sunshine again or whether the wild-cat liniment was responsible, no one undertook to say, but Mrs. Triplett's rheumatism left her suddenly, and at a time when she was specially glad to be rid of it. The Sewing Circle, to which she belonged, was preparing for a bazaar at the Church of the Pilgrims, and her part in it would keep her away from home most of the time for three days.

That is why Georgina had unlimited freedom for a while. She was left in Belle's charge, and Belle, still brooding over her troubles, listlessly assented to anything proposed to her. Belle had been allowed to go and come as she pleased when she was ten, and she saw no reason why Georgina was not equally capable of taking care of herself.

Hardly was Mrs. Triplett out of sight that first morning when Georgina slipped out of the back gate with a long brass-handled fire-shovel, to meet Richard out on the dunes. He brought a hoe, and in his hand was the little compass imbedded in the nut.

When all was ready, according to Georgina's instructions, he turned around three times, then facing the east tossed the compass over his shoulder, saying solemnly, "Brother, go find your brother." She stood ready to mark the spot when it should fall, but Captain Kidd was ahead of her and had the nut in his teeth before she could reach the place where it had touched the ground. So Richard took the nut away and held the agitated little terrier by the collar while Georgina went through the same ceremony.

This time Richard reached the nut before the dog, and drew a circle around the spot where it had lain. Then he began digging into the sand with the hoe so industriously that Captain Kidd was moved to frantic barking.

"Here, get to work yourself and keep quiet," ordered Richard. "Rats! You'll have Cousin James coming out to see what we're doing, first thing you know. He thinks something is the matter now, every time you bark. Rats! I say."

The magic word had its effect. After an instant of quivering eagerness the dog pounced into the hole which Richard had started, and sent the sand flying furiously around him with his active little paws. Georgina dragged the accumulating piles aside with the fire-shovel on one side, and Richard plied the hoe on the other. When the hole grew too deep for Captain Kidd to dig in longer, Richard stepped in and went deeper. But it was unsatisfactory work. The shifting sand, dry as powder at this depth, was constantly caving in and filling up the space.

They tried making new holes, to the north of the old one, then to the south, then on the remaining sides. They were still at it when the whistle at the cold-storage plant blew for noon. Georgina rubbed a sleeve across her red, perspiring face, and shook the ends of her curls up and down to cool her hot neck.

"I don't see how we can dig any more to-day," she said wearily. "The sun is blistering. I feel all scorched."

"I've had enough," confessed Richard. "But we've got to find that pouch."

After a moment's rest, leaning on the hoe-handle, he had an inspiration. "Let's get Manuel and Joseph and Rosa to help us. They'd dig all day for a nickel."

"I haven't one nickel left," said Georgina. Then she thought a moment. "But I could bring some jelly-roll. Those Fayals would dig for eats as quick as they would for money. I'll tell Belle we're going to have a sort of a picnic over here and she'll let me bring all that's left in the cake box."

Richard investigated his pockets. A solitary nickel was all he could turn out. "Two cents for each of the boys and one for Rosa," he said, but Georgina shook her head.

"Rosa would make trouble if you divided that way. She'd howl till somebody came to see what was the matter. But we could do this way. The one who gets the least money gets the most jelly-roll. We'll wait till the digging is over and then let them divide it to suit themselves."

By five o'clock that afternoon, the compass had been sent to "hunt brother" in a hundred different places, and the hollow circled by the bayberry bushes and beach plums where the pouch had been hidden filled with deep holes. Captain Kidd had responded to the repeated call of "Rats" until the magic word had lost all charm for him. Even a dog comes to understand in time when a fellow creature has "an axe to grind." Finally, he went off and lay down, merely wagging his tail in a bored way when any further effort was made to arouse his enthusiasm.

The Fayal children, working valiantly in the trenches, laid down arms at last and strolled home, their faces streaked with jelly-roll, and Georgina went wearily up the beach, dragging her fire-shovel after her. She felt that she had had enough of the dunes to last her the rest of her natural lifetime. She seemed to see piles of sand even when she looked at the water or when her eyes were shut.

"But we won't give up," she said staunchly as she parted from Richard. "We're obliged to find that pouch, so we've got to keep hope at the prow."

"Pity all this good digging has to be wasted," said Richard, looking around at the various holes. "If it had all been in one place, straight down, it would have been deep enough to strike a pirate's chest by this time. I hope they'll fill up before anybody comes this way to notice them."

"Somehow, I'm not so anxious as I was to go off 'a-piratin' so bold,'" said Georgina with a tired sigh. "I've had enough digging to last me forever and always, amen."

The Fayal children, surfeited with one afternoon of such effort, and not altogether satisfied as to the division of wages which had led to war in their midst, did not come back to the Place of the Pouch next morning, but Richard and Georgina appeared promptly, albeit with sore muscles and ebbing enthusiasm. Only stern necessity and fear of consequences kept them at their task.

Cousin James had reported that there was a fishing vessel in that morning with two enormous horse mackerel in the catch, which were to be cut up and salted at Railroad wharf. It was deliciously cool down on the wharf, with the breeze blowing off the water through the great packing shed, and the white sails scudding past the open doors like fans. With Mrs. Triplett busy with the affairs of the Bazaar, it would have been a wonderful opportunity for Georgina to have gone loitering along the pier, watching the summer people start off in motor boats or spread themselves lazily under flapping sails for a trip around the harbor.

But something of the grim spirit of their ancestors, typified by the monument looking down on them from the hill, nerved both Richard and Georgina one more time to answer to the stern call of Duty.

CHAPTER XVIII
FOUND OUT

"I DREAMED about that old pouch last night," said Richard in one of the intervals of rest which they allowed themselves.

"I dreamed that it belonged to a Chinese man with crooked, yellow finger-nails a foot long. He came and stood over my bed and said that because there was important news in that letter and we buried it, and kept it from going to where it ought to go, we had to be buried alive. And he picked me up like I was that nut and tossed me over his shoulder, and said, 'Brother, go find your brother.' And I began sinking down in the sand deeper and deeper until I began to smother."

Georgina made no answer. The dream did not impress her as being at all terrifying. She had swung her prism around her neck that morning when she dressed, and now while she rested she amused herself by flashing the bars of color across Captain Kidd. Richard resented her lack of interest.

"Well, it may not sound very bad out here in the daylight, but you ought to have had it. I yelled until Daddy shook me and told me I'd wake up the whole end of town with such a nightmare. If you'd have seen that old Chinaman's face like a dragon's, you'd understand why I feel that we've just got to find that pouch. It's going to get us into some kind of trouble, certain sure, if we don't."

Georgina rose to begin digging again. "It's lucky nobody ever comes this way to see all these holes," she began, but stopped with her shovel half lifted. A familiar voice from the circle of bushes at the top of the dune called down cheerily:

"Ship ahoy, mates. What port are you bound for now? Digging through to China?"

"It's Uncle Darcy!" they exclaimed in the same breath. He came plunging down the side of the dune before they could recover from their confusion. There was a pail of blueberries in each hand. He had been down the state road picking them, and was now on his way to the Gray Inn to sell them to the housekeeper. Leaving the pails in a level spot under the shade of a scrubby bush, he came on to where the children were standing, and eased himself stiffly down to a seat on the sand. It amused him to see their evident embarrassment, and his eyes twinkled as he inquired:

"What mischief are you up to now, digging all those gopher holes?"

Neither answered for a moment, then Georgina gulped and found her voice. "It's – it's a secret," she managed to say.

"Oh," he answered, growing instantly grave at the sound of that word. "Then I mustn't ask any questions. We must always keep our secrets. Sometimes it's a pity though, when one has to promise to do so. I hope yours isn't the burden to you that mine is to me."

This was the first time he had spoken to them of the promise they had made to him and Belle. With a look all around as if to make certain the coast was clear, he said:

"There's something I've been wanting to say to you children ever since that day you had the rifle, and now's as good a chance as any. I want you to know that I never would have promised what I did if it could have made any possible difference to Mother. But lately she seems all confused about Danny's trouble. She seems to have forgotten there was any trouble except that he went away from home. For months she's been looking for him to walk in most any day.

"Ever since I gave my word to Belle, I've been studying over the right and wrong of it. I felt I wasn't acting fair to Danny. But now it's clear in my mind that it was the right thing to do. I argue it this way. Danny cared so much about saving Emmett from disgrace and Belle from the pain of finding it out, that he was willing to give up his home and good name and everything. Now it wouldn't be fair to him to make that sacrifice in vain by telling while it can still be such a death-blow to Emmett's father and hurt Belle much as ever. She's gone on all these years fairly worshiping Emmett's memory for being such a hero."

Uncle Darcy stopped suddenly and seemed to be drawn far away from them as if he had gone inside of himself with his own thoughts and forgotten their presence. Georgina sat and fanned herself with her shade hat. Richard fumbled with the little compass, rolling it from one hand to the other, without giving any thought to what he was doing. Presently it rolled away from him and Captain Kidd darted after it, striking it with his forepaws as he landed on it, and thus rolling it still farther till it stopped at the old man's feet.

Recalled to his surroundings in this way, Uncle Darcy glanced at the object indifferently, but something strangely familiar in its appearance made him lean closer and give it another look. He picked it up, examining it eagerly. Then he stood up and gazed all around as if it had dropped from the sky and he expected to see the hand that had dropped it.

"Where did you get this?" he demanded huskily, in such a queer, breathless way that Richard thought his day of reckoning had come. His sin had found him out. He looked at Georgina helplessly.

"Yes, tell!" she exclaimed, answering his look.

"I – I – just played it was mine," he began. "'Cause the initials on it are the same as mine when we play pirate and I'm Dare-devil Dick. I was only going to keep it till we dug up the pouch again. We were keeping it to help find the pouch like Tom Sawyer did – "

It seemed to Richard that Uncle Darcy's hand, clutching his shoulder, was even more threatening than the Chinaman's of his nightmare, and his voice more imperative.

"Tell me! Where did you get it? That's my compass! I scratched those letters on that nut. 'D. D.' stands for Dan'l Darcy. I brought it home from my last voyage. 'Twas a good-luck nut they told me in the last port I sailed from. It was one of the first things Danny ever played with. There's the marks of his first little tooth under those letters. I gave it to him when he got old enough to claim it, for the letters were his, too. He always carried it in his pocket and he had it with him when he went away. For the love of heaven, child, tell me where you found it?"

The hand which clutched Richard's shoulder was shaking as violently as it had the day the old rifle gave up its secret, and Richard, feeling the same unnamable terror he had felt in his nightmare, could only stammer, "I – I don't know. Captain Kidd found it."

Then all three of them started violently, for a hearty voice just behind them called out unexpectedly:

"Hullo, what's all the excitement about?"

It was Captain James Milford, who had strolled down from the bungalow, his hat stuck jauntily on the back of his head, and his hands in his pockets. A few moments before he had been scanning the harbor through a long spy-glass, and happening to turn it towards the dunes had seen the two children digging diligently with shovel and hoe.

"Looks as if they'd started to honey-comb the whole Cape with holes," he thought. "Curious how many things kids of that age can think of. It might be well to step down and see what they're about."

He put up the spy-glass and started down, approaching them on one side as the Towncrier reached them on the other.

"Now for a yarn that'll make their eyes stand out," he thought with a smile as he saw the old man sit down on the sand.

"Wonder if it would sound as thrilling now as it did when I was Dick's age. I believe I'll just slip up and listen to one for old times' sake."

Uncle Darcy let go of Richard's shoulder and turned to the newcomer appealingly.

"Jimmy," he said with a choke in his voice. "Look at this! The first trace of my boy since he left me, and they can't tell me where they got it."

He held out the compass and Mr. Milford took it from his trembling fingers.

"Why, I remember this old trinket, Uncle Dan'l!" exclaimed Mr. Milford. "You let me carry it in my pocket one day when I was no bigger than Dicky, here, when you took me fishing with you. I thought it was responsible for my luck, for I made my first big catch that day. Got a mackerel that I bragged about all season."

Uncle Darcy seized the man's arm with the same desperate grip which had held the boy's.

"You don't seem to understand!" he exclaimed. "I'm trying to tell you that Danny is mixed up with this in some way. Either he's been near here or somebody else has who's seen him. He had this with him when he went away, I tell you. These children say they took it out of a pouch that the dog found. Help me, Jimmy. I can't seem to think – "

He sat weakly down on the sand again, his head in his hands, and Mr. Milford, deeply interested, turned to the children. His questions called out a confusing and involved account, told piecemeal by Georgina and Richard in turn.

"Hold on, now, let's get the straight of this," he interrupted, growing more bewildered as the story proceeded. "What was in the pouch besides the gold pieces, the other money and this compass?"

"A letter with a foreign stamp on it," answered Richard. "I noticed specially, because I have a stamp almost like it in my album."

On being closely cross-questioned he could not say positively to what country the stamp belonged. He thought it was Siam or China. Georgina recalled several names of towns partially scratched out on the back of the envelope, and the word Texas. She was sure of that and of "Mass." and of "Mrs. Henry – " something or other.

"But the inside of the letter," persisted Mr. Milford. "Didn't you try to read that?"

"Course not," said Georgina, her head indignantly high. "We only looked at each end of it to see if the person's name was on it, but it began, 'Dear friend,' and ended, 'Your grateful friend Dave.'"

"So the letter was addressed 'Mrs.,'" began Mr. Milford, musingly, "but was in a tobacco pouch. The first fact argues that a woman lost it, the last that it was a man."

"But it didn't smell of tobacco," volunteered Georgina. "It was nice and clean only where Captain Kidd chewed the string."

"I suppose it didn't have any smell at all," said Mr. Milford, not as if he expected anyone to remember, but that he happened to think of it. A slowly dawning recollection began to brighten in Georgina's eyes.

"But it did have a smell," she exclaimed. "I remember it perfectly well now. Don't you know, Richard, when you were untying it at the top of the steps I said 'Phew! that makes me think of the liniment I bought from the wild-cat woman last night,' I had to hold the bottle in my lap all the time we were at the moving picture show so I had a chance to get pretty well acquainted with that smell. And afterwards when we were wrapping the tin foil around the pouch, getting ready to bury it we both turned up our noses at the way it smelled. It seemed stronger when the sun shone on it."

"The wild-cat woman," repeated Mr. Milford, turning on Georgina. "Where was she? What did you have to do with her? Was the dog with you?"

Little by little they began to recall the evening, how they had started to the show with the Fayal family and turned aside to hear the patent medicine man sing, how Richard and Georgina had dared each other to touch the wild-cat's tail through the bars, and how Georgina in climbing down from the wheel had stumbled over Captain Kidd whom they thought safely shut up at home.

"I believe we've found a clue," said Mr. Milford at last. "If anybody in town had lost it there'd have been a notice put up in the post-office or the owner would have been around for you to cry it, Uncle Dan'l. But if it's the wild-cat woman's she probably did not discover her loss till she was well out of town, and maybe not until she reached her next stopping-place."

"There's been nothing of the sort posted on the bulletin board at the post-office," said the old man. "I always glance in at it every morning."

Mr. Milford looked at him thoughtfully as if considering something. Then he said slowly:

"Uncle Dan'l, just how much would it mean to you to find the owner of that pouch?"

"Why, Jimmy," was the tremulous answer, "if it led to any trace of my boy it would be the one great hope of my life realized."

"You are quite sure that you want to bring him back? That it would be best for all concerned?" he continued meaningly.

There was a silence, then the old man answered with dignity:

"I know what you're thinking of, and considering all that's gone before, I'm not blaming you, but I can tell you this, Jimmy Milford. If the town could know all that I know it'd be glad and proud to have my boy brought back to it."

He smote the fist of one hand into the palm of the other and looked about like something trapped, seeking escape.

"It isn't fair!" he exclaimed. "It isn't fair! Him worthy to hold up his head with the best of them, and me bound not to tell. But I've given my promise," he added, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "I s'pose it'll all work out for the best, somehow, in the Lord's own good time, but I can't seem to see the justice in it now."

He sat staring dejectedly ahead of him with dim, appealing eyes.

The younger man took a step forward and laid an arm across the bent shoulders.

"All right, Uncle Dan'l," he said heartily. "If there's anything under the sun I can do to help you I'm going to do it, beginning right now. Come on up to the house and I'll begin this Sherlock Holmes business by telephoning down the Cape to every town on it till we locate this wild-cat liniment wagon, and then we'll get after it as fast as the best automobile in Provincetown can take us."