The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp | Page 8

however, so I don't believe he'll make another move until I do. It only
complicates matters, though.
"Now, if you girls think you'd like to go winter camping, why, say the
word, find out if your folks will let you," and Mr. Ford looked at Mollie
and Betty, "and I'll arrange with Ted Franklin and his wife."

"Of course we'll go, Daddy!" cried Grace, dancing about the room. "It
will be just lovely; won't it, girls?"
"Scrumptious!" agreed Mollie.
"I'm sure I can go!" declared Betty. "Now let's go tell poor Amy!"
"Yes, I think the change will do her good," said Mr. Ford, reflectively.
"Those Jallows--well, perhaps the least said about them the better."
Talking excitedly over the chance that had been offered to them, Grace,
Mollie and Betty were soon on their way to the home of Amy
Stonington. They found their chum in better spirits. The gloom of the
day had passed, and she smiled, though wanly.
By common, though unspoken, consent, the little episode of the
afternoon was not referred to.
"But, oh! we've got the finest news!" cried Betty, enthusiastically.
"We're going winter camping! Think of that! Winter camping!"
"Tell me about it!" commanded Amy, her face brightening. And they
told her.
The description had been nearly finished, and from Mr. and Mrs.
Stonington had been exacted a tentative promise that Amy could go if
the rest did, when the telephone bell rang.
"It's Will on the wire," said Amy to Grace. "He wants to speak to you."
"How did he know I was here?" asked Grace, as she took the receiver
from her chum. "Oh, papa must have told him. Yes, what is it, Will?
What! Mr. Blackford there? And he has some strange news of his
missing sister? Yes, you and he can come right over!"
She turned and gazed with startled eyes at her chums.
"I--I wonder if he has found her?" faltered Mollie.

CHAPTER IV
MR. BLACKFORD'S CLUE
"Hope I didn't disturb any family party," apologized Mr. Blackford,
when he and Will called at the Stonington home a little later that
evening.
"Not at all," greeted Amy. "Come in. We are planning another season
of activity."
"I might have guessed," answered the young man who had been so
peculiarly involved in the five hundred dollar bill mystery. "You
Outdoor Girls are always doing something novel. What is it this time?"
"A winter camp!" they cried in chorus.
"List to the pretty maidens!" sung Will, mockingly, as he assumed a
theatrical attitude.
"Behave!" ordered his sister, whereat Will proceeded to contort himself
in various ways to the great amusement of the girls.
"That's fine!" exclaimed Mr. Blackford--"fine that you can go camping,
I mean--not Will's circus act. But I must apologize for coming in on
you this way. I happened to have some business in town, and as I
received a curious bit of news I thought you girls might be interested.
It's about my missing sister," he added, simply. "I've told you how I
have been searching for her.
"Perhaps I shouldn't bother you with my family troubles," he continued,
hesitatingly, "but, somehow, ever since you helped me out so in the
matter of that five hundred dollars, I have felt as though you did really
take an interest in me, as I do in you. And, as I haven't any real folks of
my own--so far," and he smiled, "naturally I come to you. Shall I go
on?"
The girls nodded. After making the acquaintance of the young man in

the manner related in our first volume, they had learned the queer fact
of Mr. Blackford having a sister of whom he had lost track. At one time
he hoped it might develop that she was the strange girl who fell out of
the tree, but it was not so. This girl, Carrie Norton, had, after spending
some time in Deepdale, departed to live with a distant relative.
Mr. Blackford had engaged a firm which made a specialty of locating
missing persons to look for his sister, but so far there had been no
result.
"And it doesn't look as though this were going to be very promising,"
the young man went on. "You know this searching firm has been
delving among my wood-pile relations, as I call them, looking for
clues," he went on. "They are getting all the old documents, bits of
family history, descriptions, and so on, that they can lay hands on. It all
helps, in a way, but we haven't had much luck so far. But you may be
interested in something that just came up, and you may be able to help
me.
"I've been traveling about, in connection with my business, and as I
knew I would 'make' this town to-night, I had all my mail