The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle | Page 6

work at
the Hostess House.

In the volume directly preceding this, entitled "The Outdoor Girls at
Wild Rose Lodge," the girls had had same very exciting experiences.
An old man, Professor Dempsey, by name, who had retired to a little
log cabin in the woods to recover his health, had chanced to do the girls
a very great favor. Of course the girls were grateful to him and were
very much interested when he told them of his two sons who were in
the war. Later, when the girls read of the death of his two sons in the
paper, they went to the old man's lonely cabin in the woods, but found
themselves too late. According to a friendly neighbor, the old man had
become temporarily insane at the terrible news, had wrecked his cabin
in an insane frenzy, and disappeared.
Later, at Wild Rose Lodge, the girls were frightened several times by a
strange apparition lurking in the woods around the lodge and
Moonlight Falls, a beautiful fall of water not far from the cottage where
the girls were staying. Later the boys came home from France and
helped the girls solve the mystery.
And now here was Betty proposing another outing that promised to be
more fun than any the Outdoor Girls had had yet. No wonder that in the
clamor of their excited questions and answers no one heard the
telephone ringing noisily in the hall.
Finally the Nelsons' maid came trudging up the stairs to answer it
herself.
"If I can hear myself think," she grumbled, as she took the receiver
from the hook. "With all them girls a-gabberin' an' a-talkin' at the top o'
their lungs. Hello--I can't hear you--you'll have to talk louder--you don't
know the noise they is in this house. Miss Betty?--jus' a minute----"
"A gen'leman to speak to you, Miss Betty," she announced a moment
later, looking in on the hilarious girls. "An' le's hope you can hear him
better'n I could, that's all," she grumbled, as Betty pushed by her in the
doorway and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.
"Oh, they'll keep quiet now, all right," she said, with a laughing glance
over her shoulder at her chums. "They'll want to hear what I have to

say."
At which taunt the girls started such a dreadful clamor that she really
had all she could do to hear Allen at the other end of the wire. Oh, yes,
it was Allen!
"Sech a noise," grumbled the maid, as she trudged down the steps again.
"I never did see sech wild uns!"
"Hello, hello, Allen," called Betty into the telephone. "The girls are
here and--what's that? At Walnut Street? All right, that will be fine. I
can't talk now. Tell you why later. Yes, we'll be there. Don't be silly.
Good-by!"
Her face was flushed when she confronted the girls again.
"The boys have a half holiday--it's Saturday, you know," she told them,
while they regarded her mischievously. "And they want us to pick them
up in the car, get some lunch somewhere, and make a day of it. I told
him we would."
"By 'him' I suppose you mean Allen," said Mollie, to which Betty
ducked her a bow and the other girls giggled. "I like their nerve
wanting us to pick them up. Why doesn't Frank come for us in his big
car?"
"Allen figured it would take too long for them to come home and get
it."
"My, they must be in a hurry to see us," said Grace, with a simper that
sent the girls off into gales of laughter.
"Well," said Betty finally, "are you coming, or are you not?"
For answer Mollie jumped up, pressed a hat upon Grace's indignant
head, handed Amy her coat, and crushed her own sport hat down on her
dark hair.
"Be this our answer," she said dramatically.

CHAPTER III
ENTER PETER LEVINE
It is to be feared that the boys did not have as pleasant a time on that
Saturday afternoon motor drive as they had hoped to have. For,
whereas the girls should have showered their attentions upon them, the
boys, they insisted upon talking about nothing but Gold Run Ranch,
which was the name of the property left to Mrs. Nelson by her great
uncle.
"You aren't very complimentary to us," Frank grumbled, as he hunched
himself over the wheel of Mollie's car. "You seem mighty glad to go
out to this forsaken old ranch where you won't see us for the whole
summer."
"I guess we can stand it if you can," Mollie responded lightly, which
only caused him to glower the more.
"Now I'll say Allen knew what he was doing when he studied law,"
remarked Roy Anderson gloomily, as he glanced over his shoulder