Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains | Page 8

Where are the letters postmarked?"
"Both in Westmoreland."
"That's something in favor of your suspicion that both letters were written by the same person," Helen admitted. "Still it doesn't convince me. You wouldn't expect the Spring Lake boys to mail a letter like the shorter one at Spring Lake, would you? That would stamp its identity right away."
"You are sure those letters were written by different persons?" Marion inquired curiously.
"I don't think it makes any difference whether they were or not," Helen answered more decisively than she had spoken before. "It is in that skull-and-cross-bones letter that you are most interested. I think you can disregard the other entirely. I would say this, however, that if both were written by one person, you have less to fear than if the shorter one was written by your cousin or one of his friends."
"Why?"
"Because if one person wrote both of them, he is probably suffering from softening of the brain. But if the person who wrote the longer one did not write the shorter one, there is more likelihood that he means business and will attempt to carry out his threat."
"I never realized that you were such a Sherlock Holmes," Marion exclaimed enthusiastically, while the suggestion came to her that perhaps a genius for this sort of thing accounted for her friend's peculiarities. "You ought to be a detective for a department store to catch shoplifters."
"Thanks, Marion, for the compliment, but I am not inclined that way. I'd rather do something in this case to keep our vacation plans from ending in trouble."
"I was looking for someone who could advise me," Marion said; "and I am now convinced that you are just the person I was looking for. What do you think I ought to do, Helen?"
"All the girls ought to know about this letter," Helen replied. "But you can't go to them and blurt out anything so sensational. We must break the news gently, as they say in melodrama. I wish we hadn't come."
"So do I," Marion replied, but with just a suggestion of disappointment in her voice.
"Not that I am afraid of getting hurt," Helen added hastily, realizing the suspicion of cowardice that might rest against her. "Still, if my advice had been asked, I would have argued against this very dangerous vacation scheme of yours."
"Why?" inquired Marion in a tone of disappointment.
"Because of the very situation complained of in that skull-and-cross-bones letter. I hope I don't hurt your feelings, Marion, but it is very natural for some of these rough miners to suspect that your plan was cooked up by your father to pull the wool over their eyes, and to regard you as a tool employed by him to put the scheme into operation."
"Some of the girls' parents raised the objection that there might be danger in a mining district during a strike, but none of them suggested anything of this sort," Marion remarked with humble anxiety. "I explained to them that there could hardly be any danger even if the strikers should get ugly, as the mines are some distance from where we live and any violence on the part of the miners would surely be committed at the scene of their labors. This seemed to satisfy them. Most of the miners live at the south end of the town or along the electric line running from Hollyhill to the mines."
"That doesn't make much difference if the miners once get it into their heads that the girls are being used to put over a confidence game on them," Helen argued authoritatively. "Miners are peculiar people, especially if they are lead by radical leaders of aggressive purpose. They believe that they are a badly misused set, turning out the wealth of the wealthy, who repay them by holding them in contempt, keeping their wages down to a minimum and pressing them into social and political subjection."
"Where did you learn all that, Helen?" Marion asked wonderingly. "You are not even studying sociology at school. You talk like a person of experience."
"My father was a miner," Helen began. Then she stopped, and Marion saw from the expression in her eyes and the twitch of her mouth that a big lump in her throat had interrupted her explanation. She seemed to be making an effort to continue, but was unable to do so.
"Never mind, Helen," said Marion, taking her hand tenderly in her own. "I am more convinced than ever that I found just the right person to advise me when I laid this matter before you. We will try to work this problem out together. Meanwhile we must take Miss Ladd into our confidence. Why, here she is now."
* * * * *

CHAPTER V.
GIRLS COURAGEOUS.
"What's the matter, girls? You look as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders."
Miss