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Dragon's Secret, The

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<h3>IN THE SAND</h3></div> The northeaster lasted three days. Then it blew itself out, the wind shifted to the northwest, and there was beautiful sparkling weather for the rest of the week. During this time, the two new friends came to know each other very well indeed. It was not only their little shared mystery that united them—they found they had congenial tastes and interests in very many directions, although they were so different in temperament. Leslie was slight and dark in appearance, rather timid in disposition, and inclined to be shy and hesitant in manner. Phyllis was quite the opposite—large and plump and rosy, courageous and independent, jolly, and often headlong and 41 thoughtless in action. Her mother had died when she was very little, and she had grown up mainly in the care of nurses and servants, from whom she had imbibed some very queer notions, as Leslie was not long in discovering. One of these was her firm belief in ghosts and haunted houses, which not even the robust and wholesome contempt of her father and older brother Ted had succeeded in changing. But Phyllis had a special gift which drew the two girls together with a strong attraction: she was a devoted lover of music and so accomplished a pianist as to be almost a genius—for one of her age. The whole family seemed to be musical. Her father played the ’cello and Ted the violin, but Phyllis’s work at the piano far surpassed theirs. And Leslie, too, loved music devotedly, though she neither sang nor played any instrument. It was a revelation to her when, on the next rainy afternoon, she accompanied Phyllis to the living-room of Fisherman’s Luck and listened to a recital such as 42 she had never expected to hear outside of a concert-hall. “Oh, Phyllis, it’s wonderful—simply wonderful!” she sighed blissfully when the last liquid ripples of a Chopin waltz had died away. “I don’t see how you ever learned to play like that! But what in the world are you going to do now?” For Phyllis had jumped up with an impatient exclamation, laid back the cover of the grand piano, and was hunting frantically in the music cabinet for something. “Why, I’m going to tune the old thing!” she declared. “This salt air is enough to wreck any piano, and this one is so old that it’s below pitch most of the time. But of course it wouldn’t do to have a very good one here. That’s why Dad sent this one down. I just had to learn to tune it, in self-defense, or we could never have used it. So here goes!—” And, to Leslie’s breathless amazement, she proceeded to tune the instrument with the most professional air in the world. 43 “Phyllis, you’re amazing!” murmured Leslie, at length. “But, tell me—what do you intend to do with this wonderful gift you have? Surely you’ll make it your career—or something like that!” “Well, of course I want to,” confided her friend. “To be candid—I’m crazy to. It’s about the only thing I think of. But Father won’t hear of it. He says he will let me have all the advantages he can, for an amateur, but that’s all he’s willing or can afford to do. Of course, I’m only seventeen and I’ve got to finish high school, at least. But I’m wild to go afterward to some one of the great European teachers and study for a year or two, and then see what happens. That, however, would cost at least two or three thousand dollars, and Father says he simply can’t afford it. So there you are. It’s awful to have an ambition and no way of encouraging it! But I’m always hoping that something will turn up.” And Phyllis returned to her tuning. 44 “Two or three thousand dollars would be a pretty handy sum to have!” laughed Leslie. “I’ve been rather on the lookout for some such amount myself, but for a somewhat different reason.” “Oh, I’ll warrant you have an ambition, too! Now tell me about it!” cried Phyllis, pouncing on her and ignoring the piano. “Yes, it is an ambition,” acknowledged Leslie, “but it isn’t a bit like you. I hardly think you could call it an ambition—just a wish. You see, it’s this way. We’re rather a big family at home, four of us children, and I’m the oldest; and Father’s rather delicate and has never been able to hold a good position long because he’s out so much with illness. We get along fairly well—all but little Ralph. He’s my special pet, four year old, but he’s lame—had some hip trouble ever since he was a baby. He could be cured, the doctors say, by a very expensive operation and some special care. But we haven’t the money for it—just 45 yet. We’re always hoping something will turn up, too, and my plan is to hurry through high school and training-school and then teach, and save every spare penny for Ralph. But it seems an awfully long time to wait, and all the while that little tot isn’t getting any better.” There were tears in her eyes as she reached this point, and the impetuous Phyllis hugged her. “You darling thing! I think you’re too unselfish for words! It makes me feel ashamed of my own selfish, foolish little wish. Wouldn’t it be gorgeous if we could find four or five thousand dollars lying around on the beach? Wouldn’t it just—” She stopped abruptly. “What’s the matter?” inquired Leslie. “Anything wrong?” “No—something just occurred to me. What if that wretched little dragon of ours was guarding just such a fortune? It might be jewels or bank-notes or—or something 46 equally valuable! I’m going to get it right away and make another try at opening it. It makes me furious, every time I think of it, to be so—so balked about getting at anything!” “But, Phyllis,” objected Leslie, “even if there were any such thing, I don’t believe we’d have a right to keep it. It must belong to somebody, and we ought to make an effort to find out who. Don’t you think so?” “Oh, yes, if it’s any real person—I suppose so,” admitted Phyllis. “But what if—” She stopped significantly. “Now don’t tell me it was hidden there by ghosts!” And Leslie’s infectious laugh pealed out. “Oh, hush! or Ted will hear. He can’t be far away,” implored Phyllis, guiltily. “Of course, I don’t say what or whom it was hidden by, but there’s something mighty queer to me about an empty bungalow being inhabited by living folks—” 47 “What about burglars?” interrupted Leslie, quickly. “Never was such a thing around these parts, in any one’s experience!” Phyllis hastened to assure her, much to her secret relief. “Then perhaps it’s the people who own the cottage,” offered Leslie. “No chance. They’ve all gone off to spend the winter in California—every one. Ted had a letter from Leroy Danforth, who is a great chum of his, last week.” “Well, I know there is some other explanation besides a—a ghostly one!” declared Leslie, nothing daunted. “But anyway, we might have another look at the dragon.” Phyllis went and got it out from its hiding-place in her trunk, and they spent a fruitless half-hour wrestling with its secret fastening. They broke their finger-nails trying to pry it open, they pressed and poked every inch of it in an endeavor to find a possible secret spring; they rattled and shook it, rewarded in this case 48 by the dull thud of something shifting about. It was this last sound only that kept up their courage. Finally they gave it up. “I believe we could break it open with an ax, perhaps; but you don’t seem to approve of that, so how we’re ever going to find out, I’m sure I can’t imagine!” declared Phyllis, discouraged. “Do you know, I think this metal is so strong it would resist even an ax,” Leslie soothed her, “and we’d only damage the box without accomplishing anything. There must be some other way. Why not show it to Ted and your father? Perhaps they could do what we can’t.” “I will not share this secret with Ted!” declared Phyllis, obstinately. “He’s nearly nineteen and he thinks he’s the most important thing in creation, and he’s perfectly insufferable in some ways, now. To have his advice asked in this thing would set him up worse than ever. I won’t do it!” 49 Leslie had to smile inwardly at this outburst. To her, Ted had seemed just a jolly, agreeable, and rather companionable boy, with a very friendly, likable attitude. But she realized that she had not had Phyllis’s sisterly experience, so she said nothing more. They put the dragon back in his hiding-place and sadly admitted themselves more baffled than ever. On the evening of the third day after this, however, a strange thing happened. To the surprise of Leslie, Miss Marcia had been induced to walk along the beach, after supper, and stop in at Fisherman’s Luck to hear a concert—an impromptu one—given by Phyllis and her father and brother. Leslie had learned that the Kelvin family amused itself in this fashion every night when the fishing was not particularly good. “I’d love to hear them play, shouldn’t you, Aunt Marcia? Phyllis is a wonder, just by herself, and they must make a delightful trio!” She said this without any hope that her aunt 50 would express much interest; but to her astonishment, Miss Marcia replied: “Well, suppose we walk down there after tea. I’m feeling so much better that I don’t believe it would hurt me, and I’m just hungry to hear some music myself!” Leslie joyfully imparted the news to Phyllis, and they planned an elaborate program. It was an evening that they long remembered, so absorbed were they in the music that they all loved. And it was not till the end of an ensemble rendering of a Bach concerto, that some one remarked, “Why, it’s raining!” No one had noticed it until then. Miss Marcia was quite aghast, for she seldom ventured out in the rain and she had brought no adequate wraps. But Leslie settled that question speedily. “I’ll take Rags and run up the beach to our bungalow and bring them to you, if Phyllis will lend me her slickers,” she declared. “No, you mustn’t come with me, Ted. I’ll be perfectly safe with Rags, and while 51 I’m gone, you can all be giving that Beethoven sonata that you promised Aunt Marcia. I won’t be fifteen minutes.” They finally let her go and settled down to the music once more. She was much more than fifteen minutes in returning, but no one noticed it, so deeply immersed were they in the rendering of the sonata. At last, however, she was back, breathless and dripping and with a curious light in her eye that no one noticed but Phyllis. “What is it?” Phyllis managed to whisper, when the others were talking and putting on wraps. “Just this,” replied Leslie, breathlessly and jerkily. “While I was in the house—I happened—to look out of my window—as I often do,—no light in my room—and I saw—that light again next door! Rags saw it too—at least he growled in that queer way. I waited and watched a long time—I wanted to go out nearer the place—but didn’t dare. Then it 52 disappeared and I didn’t see it—any more. Then I came on here.” Phyllis listened to the whispered, jerky sentences in a thrilled silence. Then she replied: “I’m coming up first thing to-morrow morning—early! But watch out the rest of the night—if you can!” Phyllis was as good as her word—better, in fact, for she was actually knocking at the door of Rest Haven before Leslie was out of bed, much to Miss Marcia’s astonishment. “Did you see anything else?” was her first whispered greeting. But Leslie shook her head. “There wasn’t another thing happened. I watched nearly all night—till I fell asleep at the window, in fact!” “Well, something happened at some time or other!” replied Phyllis, provocatively. “How do you know?” demanded Leslie, in a twitter. “I’ve seen the sign of it. Come outside and I’ll show you!” 53 They made some excuse to Miss Marcia for immediately vacating the house, and hurried outdoors. Phyllis led the way to a certain side door of Curlew’s Nest, on the opposite side from Rest Haven, where a sheltering projection of roof extended out for two or three feet over the ground. The hard rain of the night before had beaten out the sand all about the wooden foot-path to an unbroken smoothness. But just under the protecting roof, Phyllis pointed to something at their feet. “There it is!” she muttered. And Leslie, staring down, beheld the impression of a single footprint—a footprint very different from either of their own—in the sand! <hr class='major' /> <div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> 54 <h2>CHAPTER V</h2> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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