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Page 46
"O Madge!" Phil exclaimed, with her eyes full of tears, "I do feel so
sorry. I am afraid we have come too late. Poor Mollie will think I
have broken my promise. What could have happened to her? Do you think
her horrible old father has put her in an asylum? She told me that he
often threatened her, unless she did whatever he said."
"Don't worry, Phil dear," Madge replied sympathetically. "Perhaps the
woman was telling us a story and simply did not wish us to see her
daughter. I will come to the island with you again. Maybe we can find
her next time."
The girls hurried on until they were almost at the place where they had
left their rowboat. Phil was unusually sorrowful and silent. She
still carried her little basket with the gifts for her new friend. The
memory of a pair of wonderful blue eyes haunted her. Mollie's face had
looked so longingly into hers; it was filled with a wistful sorrow and
was haunted by fear and loneliness. It was not that of one who is mad.
"Girls," spoke Phil quickly, "will you go on down to the boat and wait
for me? I am going to run over to the tent and take another look in
there. At any rate, I am going to leave this basket of food. I won't
be gone but a minute."
Phyllis walked rapidly toward the tent. She half hoped she would find
the vanished girl inside it. But the tent was still empty. Phil set
down her basket. She was strangely disappointed and grieved. She
could do nothing more. There was nothing to do save go back to her
friends. As she stepped toward the tent opening her foot caught in a
piece of ragged carpet. Like a flash Phyllis remembered. Had she not
told Mollie to slip a note under this carpet if she was ever in trouble
or in danger and desired their help? Phil slid her hand under the rug
and found a torn scrap of yellow wrapping paper. On it was penciled in
the handwriting of a child:
"I am in much trouble. Please, please come to help me. You promised."
CHAPTER XVI
THE ATTEMPTED RESCUE
"I will go back to the shanty boat with you now, Phil," volunteered
Madge when Phyllis returned to her chums, carrying the pathetic scrap
of paper. "We have the food you brought in the basket, which we can
eat for luncheon. Lillian and Nellie can row over to the houseboat to
tell Miss Jenny Ann that we mean to spend the day here. Then, perhaps,
they will row back for us this afternoon."
"I don't think we ought to leave you and Phil alone on this island,"
remonstrated Eleanor, "especially when you won't have a boat. If
anything should happen, there would be no chance of your getting away."
"I'll tell you what to do, Nellie," suggested Phil. "Suppose you and
Lillian go home and then send our boat over to us immediately. The
farmer boy will bring it for us. He can tow it and then row back in
his own skiff. Ask him to anchor our boat in this same place. Madge
and I will come home as soon as we find out whether there is anything
we can do for poor Mollie."
Lillian and Eleanor were reluctant to leave their two friends. But
there seemed nothing else to be done. The thought of their chaperon's
anxiety at last persuaded them to go, and they departed after promising
to send the boat over immediately they reached the "Merry Maid."
"What do you think we had better do, Phil?" asked Madge as the other
two girls rowed out of sight.
Phil frowned and shook her head. "I haven't the faintest idea, Madge;
I am afraid we are too late to do anything. That dreadful Mike has
already taken his daughter away. I believe she wrote us several days
ago, when she first heard what they meant to do with her. But I can't
understand why her father wishes to put her in an asylum. She is much
too useful to them. She does nearly all the washing and cooking on
that miserable old shanty boat."
"I do wish we had some money," declared Madge thoughtfully. "I believe
Mike would do anything for money. If we could only take care of
Mollie, perhaps her father would let us have her. But you and I are as
poor as church mice, Phil. Isn't it horrid?"
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