The Mystery at Number Six | Page 9

she can help it. She won't go round the pool."
She walked along with them to the other side of the pool and they came to where the car stood. Bernice's mind was fairly sizzling with a host of questions that she longed to ask, yet something in the strange girl's restraint prevented her from uttering them.
"You've been very--very good to me," the girl said wistfully as they clambered in, "to bring me all that candy. I never had anything like it before."
"Tell me," asked Bernice, for this she felt would be a quite legitimate question, "have you lived in the Everglades all your life--before this?"
"Yes, either in them or right on the edge. This is the first time I've ever been so far from them."
As they started the car and prepared to drive away, Bernice suddenly leaned out. "We'll come again very soon. But--I most forgot!--we haven't even told you our names. I'm Bernice Conant and this is my cousin, Sydney Conant. We're living at Jasper, the phosphate town about twelve miles from here. And shall we call you Dell?"
Again the annoyed flush crept up under the girl's dark skin. "They call me that, but my real name is Delight!" And she turned and disappeared into the underbrush.
CHAPTER IV
MANY SPECULATIONS AND ONE CERTAINTY
IN the sweet-scented darkness of the hotel porch that evening, Bernice and Sydney discussed and re-discussed the strange happenings of the afternoon. Bernice and her parents were staying at the little hotel temporarily while a bungalow was being found for their occupation near that of Sydney's parents. A South Florida phosphate-town is a curious mushroom growth, designed only for those engaged in the working of the phosphate-mine or factory, and the most recent comers must always put up with the accommodations of the little hotel till their own bungalows are either constructed or vacated by departing occupants.
The two young people were much divided in their opinions in regard to their new acquaintance.
"But you can't deny that she's certainly very unlike those other two--that she lives with!" asserted Bernice for the half-dozenth time.
"Yes, she's different, I admit," replied the more cautious Sydney; "at least, she's very different from the cracker woman. How different she is from Jerry I can't tell, as he had so little to say. They tell me he's very intelligent, though."
"But what's the meaning of her being so mysterious--and wanting us not to let them know when we come? I warrant they're not kind to her and she wants to get away from them somehow." Bernice was a little irritated at Sydney's inability to see the thing from her point of view.
"If she wanted very much to get away, all she'd have to do would be to run off and give herself into the hands of the authorities. If she could prove that they've ill-used her or anything like that, no one would make her go back to them. No, if she wanted that, she'd have plenty of opportunity," replied Sydney skeptically.
"But perhaps she doesn't know enough, especially if she's lived in the Everglades all her life. Did you notice what good English she used? Hardly a single grammatical mistake. Where did she ever learn it?"
"That I can't figure out, unless Jerry is some sort of a scholar, which isn't likely. I know there are no schools in that wilderness and not a soul lives there except the Seminole Indians; and they're an ignorant lot. They are the only really wild Indians left in the United States. Once in a while they come in to Miami or Fort Lauderdale or even Kissimee to trade, but most of them can hardly speak a word of English. No, that is a puzzle!" Sydney had to admit.
"Well, it isn't the only one by any means," insisted Bernice. "How do you account for the way she acted when you spoke of Jerry as her father? She was positively indignant, though she admitted that she called him uncle."
"Calling people uncle doesn't mean a thing down South here. Every other old darky is Uncle or Aunt Something-or-other! But anyhow he's told people she was his niece and it may be really true."
"I don't believe it!" cried Bernice. "She's no half-breed! She has dark hair and a dark sunburnt complexion, but her eyes are the bluest things I ever saw--perfectly beautiful! I'll never believe she has a drop of Indian blood in her."
"Then will you tell me how she ever came to be in the Everglades at all?" demanded Sydney, rather exasperated that Bernice should try to make a mystery out of what he thought could be easily explained. "Her blue eyes came from her white ancestry. That doesn't prove anything. And no one but an Indian or a part-Indian like Jerry could possibly have lived in the Everglades all their lives. So