The Curlytops on Star Island/Chapter 9

and Ted returned from looking at the pretty scarlet bird just in time to see what happened to Trouble. They saw him fall into the spring.

"Oh!" cried Janet, clasping her hands. "Oh, look!"

"He'll be drowned!" yelled Ted, and then he ran as fast as he could toward the place where he had last seen his little brother, for Baby William was not in sight now. He was down in the water.

Perhaps Trouble might not have come to any harm, more than to get wet through by the time Ted reached him. Perhaps the little fellow might not have been drowned. At any rate, no harm came to him, even though Jan and her brother did not get there in time to help.

The two Curlytops, their fuzzy hair fluttering in the wind, were half way to the spring when they saw coming from the bushes a ragged man.

"There he is!" cried Janet.

"Who?" asked Ted.

"The man who—talked to me—while I was picking flowers," and Jan's voice came in gasps, for she was getting out of breath from having run so hard. "There he is!" and she pointed.

"That's the tramp!" cried Ted. "They are on the island, only grandpa couldn't find 'em!"

"Do you—do you s'pose he's goin' to take Trouble?" faltered Janet.

Before Ted could answer, the Curlytops saw what the ragged man was going to do. They saw him stoop over the spring, reach down into it and lift something up. The "something" was Baby William, screaming and crying in fright, and dripping wet.

The ragged man set Trouble down on a rock near the spring, and then, waving his hand to Ted and Jan, he cried:

"He's all right—swallowed hardly any water. Take him home as soon as you can, though. I haven't time to stop—have to go to see the professor!"

With that the man seemed to dive in between some high bushes, and the Curlytops could not see him any more. But Trouble was still sitting on the rock, the water from his clothes making a little puddle all around him, and he was crying hard, his tears running down his cheeks.

"Oh, Trouble!" gasped Jan, putting her arms around him, all wet as he was.

"Are you hurt?" asked Ted, looking carefully at his little brother.

"I—I—I fal—falled in an'—an' I's all—all wetted!" wailed Trouble, his breath coming in gasps because of his crying, which he had partly stopped on seeing his brother and sister. "I falled in de spwing, I did!"

"What made you?" asked Ted, while Jan tried to wring some of the water out of the little fellow's waist and rompers.

"I wanted to get de pail full for mamma."

"But I filled the pail, Trouble. You oughtn't to have touched it," said Teddy. He went to the spring and looked down in it. The pail was at the bottom of the little pool.

"It's a good thing that tramp got him out," remarked Janet. "He must be a nice man, even if his clothes are ragged."

"I guess so, too," agreed Ted. "But he said we must take Trouble home. I guess we'd better."

"Yes," assented Jan. "But he isn't hurt."

"He wasn't in very long," Ted said. "The man got him out awful quick—quicker than we could. You lead him home, Jan, and I'll get the pail out of the spring. It's sunk like a ship."

"How're you going to get it?"

"With a stick, I guess. You mustn't lean over the spring any more, Trouble."

"No," promised Baby William.

But the Curlytops could not be sure he would keep his promise. He might for a time, while he remembered what had happened to him.

With a crooked stick Teddy managed to fish up the pail after two or three trials. Then, filling it with water from the spring, he carried it back to camp, while Jan led the wet and dripping Trouble.

"Oh, my goodness! What's happened now?" asked Nora, as she saw the three children coming into camp. "Did you go in swimming with all your clothes on, Trouble?"

"No. I falled into de spwing, I did!"

"And the tramp got him out!" added Jan.

Then she and Teddy, taking turns, told what had happened. Mrs. Martin scolded Trouble a little, to make him more careful the next time. Then Grandpa Martin said:

"Well, there must be strangers on this island after all, though I could not find them. They must be hiding somewhere, and I'd like to know what for."

"Maybe they're living in gypsy wagons," suggested Jan.

"Or in a cave," added Ted. "They look as if they lived in a cave."

"There isn't any cave on the island, as far as I know," his grandfather told Ted. "But I don't like those strange men roaming about our place here. They may not do any harm, but I don't like it. I'll have another look for them."

"So will I," added Teddy, but he did not say this aloud. Teddy had made up his mind to do something. He was going to look for those men himself, either in a cave or a gypsy wagon. Ted wanted to find the ragged man—find all of them if more than one; and there seemed to be at least two, for the one who had pulled Teddy out of the spring had spoken of another—a "professor."

"What's a professor?" asked Jan.

"Oh, it's a man or a woman who has studied his lessons and teaches them to others," answered her mother. "One who knows a great deal about something, such as about the stars or about the world we live in. Professors find out many things and then tell others—young people generally—about them."

"I'm going to be a professor," said Teddy.

"Are you?" inquired his mother with a smile. "I hope you will get wise enough to be one."

But Teddy did not speak all that was in his mind. If a professor was one who found out things, then the small boy decided he would be one long enough to find out about the tramps, and perhaps find the cave where they lived, and then he could tell Jan.

When Trouble had been put into dry clothes and sent to sleep by his mother's singing, "Ding-dong bell, Pussy's in the well," Jan and Ted sat by themselves, talking over what had happened that day. Ted was making a small boat to sail on the lake, and Jan was mending her doll's dress, where a prickly briar bush had torn a little hole in it.

Early the next morning Ted slipped away from his place at the breakfast table, and motioned to Jan to join him behind the sleeping tent. Ted held his finger over his lips to show his sister that he wanted her to keep very quiet.

"What's the matter?" she whispered, when they were safe by themselves. "Did you see the tramp-man?"

"No, but I'm going to find him!"

"You are?" cried Janet, and her eyes opened wide with wonder and surprise.

"Don't tell anybody," went on Ted. "We don't want Trouble to follow us. Come on off this way," and he pointed to a path that led through the bushes back of the tent.

Trouble was busy just then, playing in the sand on the shore of Clover Lake, while Mrs. Martin and Nora were clearing away the breakfast things. Grandpa Martin was raking up around the tents, so no one saw the Curlytops slip away.

"Which way are you going?" asked Jan of her brother.

"Over to the spring."

"What for? To get more water? Where's your pail?"

"I don't have to get water yet," answered Ted. "I'm going to the spring to look to see if I can tell which way that tramp went. Don't you know how Indians do—look at the leaves and grass in the woods, and they can tell by the marks which way anybody went? Mother read us a story once like that."

"I don't like Indians," remarked Jan somewhat shortly, half turning back.

"Oh, there's no Indians!" exclaimed Ted impatiently. "I was only sayin' what they did. Come on!"

So Jan followed her brother, though she was a little bit afraid. However, she saw nothing to frighten her, and it was nice in the woods. The wind was blowing through the trees, the birds were singing and it was cool and pleasant. The Curlytops soon came to the spring where Trouble had fallen in.

"Now we must look all around," declared Teddy.

"What for?" his sister demanded again.

"To tell which way the tramp-man went. Then we can find his cave."

"Maybe he lives in a wagon or a tent."

"Then we'll find them. Come on, help look!"

"I don't know how," confessed Janet.

"Well, look for a place where the bushes are broken down and where you see footprints in the dirt. That's the way Indians tell. Mother read it out of a book to us."

So Jan and Ted looked all around the spring, and at last Ted found a place where it seemed as if some one had run through in a hurry, for twigs were broken off the bushes, and, by looking down at the ground, he saw the marks of shoes in the dirt.

Of course Ted could not tell who had made them, but he thought surely it must have been the tramp who had pulled Trouble from the spring. Ted was sure they were not the footprints of himself and his sister, for their own were much smaller.

"Come on, Jan!" cried Teddy. "We'll find that tramp now or, anyway, the place where he hides."

He pushed on through the bushes. There seemed to be a sort of path leading away from the spring, which was not the same path that Ted and Grandpa Martin took when they went from the camp to the water-hole to fill the pail each day.

On and on went Ted, with Jan following. She was so excited now at the thought that perhaps they might find something, that she was not a bit frightened.

"Wait a minute! Wait for me, Teddy!" she called, as her brother hurried on ahead of her.

"Come on, Jan!" he called. "There's a good path here, and I guess I see something. Oh, look here! Oh, Jan! Oh! Oh!" suddenly cried Teddy. Then his voice seemed to fade away, as if he had all at once gone down the cellar, and Jan could hear him caling faintly.

"Oh, Teddy! What's the matter? What's the matter?" she cried as she ran on through the bushes.

"I've found the cave!" was his answer, so faint and far away that Jan could hardly hear. "I've found the cave. I fell right into it! Come on!"