CHAPTER XV

THE BOATHOUSE GHOST

Between her throes of sea-sickness, Linda began to be heard.

"I'll never forgive you, never, Walter Mason! Nor you, either, Grace! You brought me out here to drown me! I'll tell my father!"

This had probably been going on for some time before Nan and her chum were assisted aboard the _Bargain Rush_. Walter seemed to be pretty well disgusted with the railroad magnate's daughter.

"Don't tell your father till you get ashore, Linda," he advised.

"You're just as horrid as you can be!" gasped Linda.

"Don't mind him, Linda," begged peace-loving Grace. "And, really, it isn't his fault."

"You're just as bad as he is, every whit!" snapped the unpleasant girl. "You both were determined to come out here when I wanted to go ashore."

"Why!" gasped Grace, showing some pluck for once, "you wouldn't have had Walter leave Nan and Bess to drown, would you?"

"And now we're _all_ going to be drowned!" was Linda's response, but hastily leaning over the rail again, her voice was stifled.

"If--if I ever get to shore alive," she finally wailed, "I'll never even go in wading again."

Had the situation really not seemed so tragic, Nan would have laughed. Bess had joined Linda at the rail, being just as sick as the other. Grace looked green about the lips, herself; but she was plucky. Nan felt no qualms.

"Let me take the wheel, Walter," she said to Grace's brother. "I know how to steer."

"Good for you, Miss Sherwood!" cried the boy. "And you're not afraid, either?"

"No--not _much_," answered Nan, stoutly.

"The boat's as safe as a house. The squall's gone over now. We'll soon get to land. Let her off another point now."

Nan obeyed. The propeller began kicking in regular time. They were able to head around toward the shore. Walter soon took the wheel again and guided the _Bargain Rush_ more directly toward the anchorage before the Hall. They were all of three miles from the boathouse.

"We'll make it all right now, Miss Sherwood," said Walter, cheerfully.

"It was awfully good of you to come out for us," Nan said.

"Goodness! we couldn't do less, could we?"

"I guess Linda wouldn't have come if she had had her way."

"Well! Grace isn't that kind," said the brother, loyally. "Of course, we would have done everything in our power to save you girls."

"And we will never forget it!" Nan cried warmly. "We would have drowned."

"Never mind," said Walter, in embarrassment. "It's all right now."

"I--I guess the other girls don't think so," said Nan, suddenly observing her chum and the other two. All three were violently sick. "It is awfully rough."

"We're catching these waves sideways," Walter said. "Wait till we get in the lea of Lighthouse Point. It won't be so bad then."

This was a true prophecy, and the _Bargain Rush_ was soon sailing on even keel. Linda, as well as the other girls, recovered in a measure from the feeling of nausea that had gripped them. As soon as the vulgar girl regained her voice she began to scold again.

"We'd never been in all this trouble if you'd listened to me, Walter Mason! This is awful!"

"Oh, it's better now, Linda," said Walter, cheerfully. "We'll soon be at the Hall dock."

"And that's where you should have landed Grace and me just as soon as the storm came up," grumbled Linda.

"But we saw the canoe in trouble----"

"I didn't see it!" snapped the girl, crossly.

"But I did," Walter said warmly. "It would have been a wicked and inhuman thing to have turned away. We had to save Miss Sherwood and Miss Harley."

"And risk _my_ life doing it!" cried Linda. "I shall tell my father."

"If you tell your father everything you promise to," said Walter, with some spirit, "he must be an awfully busy man just attending to your complaints."

"Oh, my!" gasped Bess, with wan delight. Meek Walter Mason was beginning to show boldness in dealing with the purse-proud girl.

"You're a nasty thing!" snapped Linda to Walter. "And I don't like you."

"I'll get over that," muttered the boy to himself.

"And your sister is just as bad!" scolded Linda, giving way to her dreadful temper as Nan and Bess had seen her do on the train. "I'll show you both that you can't treat me in any such way. I've always stood up for your dunce of a sister. That's what she is, a dunce!"

"If you were a boy, I'd thrash you for saying that!" declared Walter, quietly, though in a white heat of passion himself.

"Oh! oh!" shrieked Linda. "So you threaten to strike me, do you? If I tell my father _that_----"

"Oh, tell him!" exclaimed Walter, in exasperation.

"Of all the mean girls!" murmured Bess, with her arm about Grace, who was crying softly and begging her brother to desist.

"Oh! I can see what's caused all this," went on Linda, in her high-pitched voice. "Grace was mighty glad to have me and my friends even look at her before Nan Sherwood and Bess Harley came to the Hall. I wish her all the benefit she may derive from associating with _them_. I know one is a thief and the other is no better."

Bess turned upon the enraged girl with an angry retort. But Nan stopped her.

"Don't reply, Bess," said Nan, in a low voice. "Brawling never proves anything, or settles any argument. But if she keeps on saying in public that I am a thief I shall go to Dr. Prescott about it."

"You wouldn't be a tell-tale?" gasped Bess, horrified.

"In this case I will," Nan said firmly. "And she shall apologize in public."

Linda, by this time, had, in a measure, quieted down. She was sobbing angrily and did not hear what Nan said. The other young people left her strictly alone until the _Bargain Rush_ reached the dock.

Oddly enough not even the boatkeeper, Henry, had discovered the absence of the canoe in which Nan and Bess had sailed away from the landing two hours and more before. The other boats had come in, in a hurry, when the squall arose, and it was now so late that all the girls had gone up the bluff. The supper gong would sound soon.

Henry had gone to his supper, intending to return later to put all the boats under cover and lock up the house. The girls said Henry was afraid of the boathouse ghost himself, and would never go into the building after dusk without a lantern.

Linda stepped ashore and marched away with her head in the air. Grace had permission to go home with her brother to supper. Mr. Mason, who was an influential lawyer, owned a country home up the lake shore, beyond Professor Krenner's queer little cabin, and the brother and sister proposed going to their home in the _Bargain Rush_. Grace would return to the Hall later, by automobile.

Nan and Bess were grateful to Walter and Grace.

"We cannot tell you how we feel, _inside_, Walter," Nan said softly. "Nothing we can ever do for you will repay you----"

"Oh, don't!" begged the boy.

"You've got to hear your praises sung!" cried Bess, laughing and sobbing at once. "I shall write home to my folks about it. And we shall tell all the girls."

"I wish you wouldn't!" gasped the embarrassed youth.

"And your sister will never miss Linda Riggs' friendship," said Nan, stoutly. "We'll see that Linda does not bother her, either."

"Oh! you're so brave, Nan," murmured the timid Grace.

"It doesn't take much courage to face a girl like Linda," Nan retorted. "I've seen already that she has very few real friends in the school, and those she has to pay high to keep. I would rather have her for an enemy than a friend."

Nan and Bess kissed Grace and shook hands with her brother. The chums were both as wet as they could be, and the evening air felt chill.

"We'd better get our sweaters," Nan said.

"Oh! they're in the dressing room of the boathouse," objected Bess.

"Yes, I know it," her chum said, starting off.

"But, Nan!"

"Well?"

"Sup--suppose we _see_ something?" gasped Bess.

"Why, we want to see something," said Nan, puzzled. "We want to see our sweaters. And we want to feel them, too."

"But I don't mean that," insisted Bess.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what they say," objected Bess Harley. "It's haunted!"

"I declare! you don't believe that foolishness, do you, Bess Harley?" cried Nan.

"I don't know whether I believe it or not," confessed her chum. "But I don't want to see any ghost."

"I don't believe you ever will, honey," Nan said, more seriously.

"You can laugh----"

"I'm not laughing: But we can't stand here and take cold. We want those sweaters."

"I'd rather not go," Bess whispered, hanging back.

"Then _I'll_ go."

"But I don't want you to leave me alone," objected Bess.

"You're the greatest girl I ever saw!" sputtered Nan.

"I know I'm a coward," said her friend, shakingly. "I'd have given up all hope and been drowned, out there on the lake, if it hadn't been for you, dear Nan."

"Nonsense! Come on! Let's get the sweaters. It's almost supper time and Mrs. Cupp will give us fits."

"She won't, for I shall tell her just how brave you were, and how Walter saved us both."

"Ha!" cried Nan. "After being through what we have this afternoon, Bess, I shouldn't think you'd be afraid of the dark."

"It _is_ dark," murmured Bess, as they approached the boathouse.

"Bah!" repeated Nan, gently scornful.

"Maybe you won't 'bah' so much before we get out," whispered Bess, as they entered the open door and approached the girls' dressing room and lockers.

They had to cross the big room where the boats were hauled up the sloping plank floor from the cove. It was dark and mysterious.

Suddenly Bess clutched her chum by the arm. "Oh-o-o!" she moaned faintly.

Her shaking hand indicated the direction of a window across the room. It was lighter outside the boathouse than it was within. Against the gray background of the window-pane moved a figure! A black figure! A human figure!

The two girls halted and clung together. Even Nan's heart beat faster.

The figure moved slowly across the window opening. It made no sound. It disappeared for a moment and then reappeared before a second window. It was all in black and not very tall. It was soon gone entirely.

The girls heard no door open and close. It was just as though the black figure had evaporated--melted into the air!

"The ghost! What did I tell you, Nan Sherwood?" moaned Bess.