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Camp-Fire Girls In The Allegheny Mountains or, A Christmas Success Against Odds

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<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> <h2>TRAPPED.</h2> 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." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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