THE RADIO GIRLS AT FOREST LODGE

“DON’T MOVE, JESS. I AM COMING UP.”

CHAPTER I GREAT EXPECTATIONS

“I don’t know much about your Aunt Emma, Burd, but I am quite certain I shall adore her.”

Burd Alling, pudgy and good-natured, looked at Amy Drew and slowly grinned.

“Good for you, Amy,” he said, returning to his plate of ice cream with renewed vigor. “People either hate Aunt Emma or love her. I am glad you have decided on the latter.”

“She must be a strange sort of person, your Aunt Emma,” said Jessie Norwood, the third of the little party seated around the table at the Dainties Shop. “I like people who have positive characters.”

“Oh, Aunt Em is positive enough, if that is what you like,” chuckled Burd. “The worst thing about her is that she doesn’t seem to approve of that characteristic in others.”

“You say this Aunt Emma of yours owns this place called Forest Lodge?” Jessie interrupted eagerly. “Where is it, Burd?”

“In a forest, I suppose,” murmured Amy Drew.

“How bright you are,” scoffed Burd. “Forest Lodge is on Lake Towako, about forty miles from New Melford,” he added to Jessie. “Aunt Em wants to spend a week or two up in the woods, and she was bemoaning the fact, by letter, that she had no one to go with her. I mean, no ladies. Of course, I’m already booked to go.”

“How about us?” interposed Amy, smiling her sweetest. “Wouldn’t we do?”

“Would you like to?” cried Burd, his face lighting up over the idea.

“Amy, how could you propose such a thing!” interposed Jessie, demurely. “Don’t you know you practically asked for an invitation?”

“Leave out the practically and you will have it,” returned Amy, unabashed. “Besides, didn’t you hear Burd say his poor dear aunt would be lonely away up there in the woods by herself? Be charitable, Jessie! Be charitable.”

“But, say, if you girls really think you would like to go, I know Aunt Em will be more than glad to have you,” said Burd. “She will greet you as gifts from heaven.”

“Well, Jess may look like an angel, but I am sure I don’t,” remarked Amy, paying fond attention to the remaining portion of her George Washington sundae. “Never mind the compliments, Burd. Tell us more about your aunt.”

“Do you think Nell Stanley could go too?” broke in Jessie, eagerly. The prospect of a two weeks’ added vacation at Forest Lodge was becoming alluring.

“Sure thing! The more the merrier,” Burd answered, heartily. He finished his ice cream and motioned to Nick, the clerk, to bring more George Washington sundaes. “She is a jolly old soul and never is happy unless completely surrounded by young folks.”

“Oh, is she so very old?” asked Amy.

“We-ell, not so old as to be exactly decrepit,” said Burd, judicially, though his eyes were merry. “She can still hop around pretty lively when occasion requires. But I will not tell you another word,” he added, his round face as severe as so habitually merry a countenance could ever become. “Whatever else you learn about the lady, you will have to learn from her personally. I refuse to give away a blood relative.”

“But, Burd, all this is so very wonderful!” cried Jessie. “I never dared hope we would have another chance for fun this summer before school opens.”

“Oh, Jess, remind me not,” commanded Amy, with a groan. “As Miss Seymour would say, ‘Why intrude so gloomy a thought upon this joyous hour?’”

The Miss Seymour of whom Amy spoke was a teacher of English in the high school which Jessie and Amy and their friend, Nell Stanley, attended.

The Radio Girls had returned from a wonderful vacation on Station Island only a few days before this story opens. And now had come this possibility of spending the short remainder of their school vacation at a typical hunting lodge in the heart of a forest. Small wonder that with this alluring prospect before them they could not bear the mention just then of school and studies, for to their eager minds the possibility of the visit looked like certainty.

“Have you told Darry yet?” Jessie asked, and Burd favored her with a look that was almost pitying. Darry, or Darrington Drew, to give him the benefit of his full name, was Amy’s brother and Burd Alling’s closest chum. The two boys, though utterly unlike in looks and disposition, were inseparable.

“Sure, I’ve told Darry,” he said, in reply to Jessie’s question. “His enthusiasm over the project knows no bounds. Says it has been his lifelong ambition to get in close contact with the forest rangers and study their methods of fighting forest fires.”

“Oh, do they have fires up there, too?” queried Amy.

“Wherever there is a forest, there are bound to be fires once in a while,” Burd informed her, from the heights of his superior wisdom. Darry and Burd, being in college, were several years older than the high school girls, and it was seldom that they missed an opportunity to impress that fact upon Jessie and Amy. “That’s where the forest rangers come in. And, believe me, sometimes they have their work cut out for them, too.”

“Oh, Burd, please tell me more about it,” begged Jessie.

“I can’t tell you much,” replied Burd, modestly, “because I don’t know a great deal about the work of the forest rangers—nothing, in fact, except what I have read. But I know there is one thing that will interest you girls mightily.”

“Bet you another George Washington sundae I know what it is,” said Amy, quickly, and when Burd laughingly took her up she pronounced the one word “Radio!” with proud emphasis.

“Oh, I know,” broke in Jessie, before Burd could speak. “I heard Daddy Norwood talking about it one night to Momsey, and it was awfully interesting, even though at that time I was not particularly interested in radio. They use it—radio, I mean—fighting fires and things, don’t they?”

“Especially things,” agreed Burd, with a grin. Then, becoming suddenly conscious of the check at his elbow, he looked up and found Nick’s worried gaze upon him. The Dainties Shop was filling up and their table was needed.

The girls took in the situation at a glance and rose laughingly while Burd went over to settle with Nick, much to the relief of the latter.

Burd seemed to be having some trouble getting his change, and while they waited for him outside the door of the Dainties Shop the girls gayly discussed this new prospect.

“I am dreadfully anxious to meet Aunt Emma,” Amy was saying when she felt a slight touch on her arm and turned sharply about.

A tall, slender girl was standing there, and on her face was a dead white pallor that amazed and shocked the robust girls.

She was holding toward them a five-dollar bill and Amy, the irrepressible, laughed suddenly as her gaze fell upon it.

“Thanks, so much,” she murmured; “but I don’t happen to need it just now.”

“Oh, Amy, hush!” cried Jessie, as she saw the mouth of the strange girl set in a thin straight line and her eyes grow hostile.

“I wanted to ask you if you would change this for me,” said the stranger in a colorless voice that matched the pallor of her face. “But if you don’t care to——”

She turned away, but Jessie caught her quickly by the sleeve.

“Oh, wait a minute, please,” she said. “I am sure I can change the bill for you.”

She fumbled in her bag, but Amy, instantly regretting her flippant speech, found the money first in her own small bag and handed it with an apologetic smile to the girl.

“I’m sorry I was rude,” she said. “I didn’t understand.”

This apology meant a great deal, coming, as it did, from Amy, but the tall, pale girl seemed scarcely to notice. She accepted the five one-dollar bills, giving her own five-dollar note in exchange. Amy stuffed the bill in her pocket, and with a muttered word of thanks the stranger turned and walked off swiftly. She did not turn back, and in another moment a street corner hid her from view.

“I must say she isn’t very polite,” grumbled Amy, as Burd joined them. “After humbling my perfectly good pride in the dust and everything. Imagine me apologizing!”

“If I had not seen it I certainly would not have believed it,” agreed Jessie, cheerfully, and Amy shot her an injured look.

“You mean heard it,” she corrected frigidly. “If I cared to be unkind, my dear, I might remind you that an apology can never be seen!”

Burd went with them as far as the Norwood place in Roselawn. There he left them, intimating that he and Darry had important business in town and would not see them till later.

“Make it as much later as you like,” Amy told him cheerfully. “We shan’t pine away and die in your absence.”

As a matter of fact, the girls were far too busy for the remainder of that afternoon to give the boys more than a passing thought. They chattered like magpies of the possible trip to Forest Lodge while, with skilful fingers, they overhauled the radio set which Jessie and Amy themselves had set up in the pretty and spacious living room of Jessie’s own suite of rooms in the Norwood house. Jessie had brought a new detector from town and was bent upon trying the effect of it upon her set without delay.

“We must be ready for the special radio concert to-night,” Jessie reminded her, when Amy protested against the “hard labor” her friend imposed. “It wouldn’t do to miss it, and you know this detector is working badly.”

Mrs. Norwood, known fondly to her daughter, and to most of her daughter’s intimate friends as well, as “Momsey,” was away from home that afternoon—a matter of great regret to Jessie, who had hoped to talk over with her at once the invitation for Forest Lodge and ask her consent to the project.

It was late before she returned, and by that time the girls had “jacked up” the radio set until it was working perfectly. They fell upon Mrs. Norwood simultaneously, bombarding her with facts and questions until Mrs. Norwood laughed in helpless bewilderment and begged them to begin all over again from the beginning and “go slowly.” This they did, and had hardly finished when the telephone bell rang.

“Miss Alling would like to speak to you, Mrs. Norwood,” announced the maid, coming into the room.

The girls could hardly wait for the telephone conversation to come to an end, and, in their eagerness, did no more than stutter their questions when Mrs. Norwood returned, a smile on her face.

They were overjoyed to find Mrs. Norwood pleasantly willing to give her consent to the Forest Lodge project, especially now that Emma Alling had given them her personal invitation to accompany her. It seemed that at some former time Mrs. Norwood and Miss Alling had worked together in some benefit scheme, and Mrs. Norwood had been strongly attracted to the rather eccentric but good-hearted woman.

“All of which is very lucky for us,” remarked the irrepressible Amy.

“Though I must say,” Mrs. Norwood added, with a smile, “I don’t particularly envy Emma Alling her present undertaking!”

Jessie’s eyes twinkled as she said reproachfully: “Don’t you think that is rather hard on us, Momsey?”

Amy hastened home to gain permission to make the visit at Forest Lodge, but was persuaded without much difficulty to return for dinner, and as soon as the meal was over, the girls ran up to Jessie’s room to “listen in” on the special concert that was scheduled for that evening.

They tuned the set to the wave length of the broadcasting station of the Stratford Electric Company and almost immediately heard a man’s voice speaking. The first words were sufficiently unusual to catch and hold their attention.

“Before proceeding with the program, we wish to make a special announcement,” said the voice. “There is positive evidence that a counterfeit five-dollar bill is in circulation in this locality. The bill has a small v-shaped notch in one corner of it and the marking on the under side is indistinct. We wish all who hear this announcement to-night to be on the lookout for the counterfeit money, so that any one finding it in his possession may report it to the authorities.” That was all.

The girls removed their head phones and stared at each other intently for a moment. It was evident that they were both thinking of the same thing. That five-dollar bill which the strange girl had asked Amy to change that afternoon!

Amy reached for her purse and opened it.

“If that girl wished a counterfeit five-dollar bill on me,” she declared, “I will pursue her to the ends of the earth and get it back.”

“Quick! Let me see that bill,” urged Jessie.

Together, heads almost touching, they examined the greenback which had come so strangely into their possession. To their inexperienced eyes there was nothing wrong with the marking. Then Jessie suddenly uttered an exclamation. She pointed to a tiny, v-shaped notch in one corner of it.

“Amy, it is, it must be, one of the counterfeits!” she breathed.

CHAPTER II THE COUNTERFEIT BILL

Eagerly Jessie and Amy scrutinized the bill again and, with the v-shaped notch to help them, they saw, or thought they saw, that the marking on the under side of the bill was a trifle blurred and indistinct.

Even then they were not satisfied, but must run down to show the note to Mr. Norwood, who sat chatting with Momsey in the living room.

“Daddy Norwood, if you tell me this bill is a counterfeit, I will never forgive you,” was Jessie’s greeting to her father, as she dropped on the arm of his chair and thrust the bill into his hand.

“What’s this, what’s this?” exclaimed Mr. Norwood, smiling at the two girls. “What is all this talk about counterfeits? Am I to understand, my daughter, that you have turned criminal?”

“And she is so young, too,” murmured Amy, beneath her breath.

“Please look at it, Daddy Norwood,” urged Jessie, indicating the bill which dangled carelessly from her father’s hand.

“Well,” said the latter, mildly, “I am looking at it. Now suppose you tell me what all the excitement is about.”

Between them the girls told him of the announcement by radio of the dangerous counterfeit five-dollar bill that was in circulation.

As they proceeded, the lawyer’s face became grave and he examined the bill carefully and with a sudden intense interest.

“Hm! I have heard about this counterfeit money,” he said, after a pause during which the girls, and Mrs. Norwood, too, regarded him expectantly. “And it is a very serious matter, let me tell you.”

“But is this bill counterfeit?” asked Jessie, impatiently.

Mr. Norwood looked up at her with a peculiar smile, then down at the note again.

“It certainly is a remarkably clever imitation,” he said.

“Then it is a counterfeit!” declared Jessie, and turned to face Amy, whose expressive face was a mirror of conflicting emotions.

“Now I will have to keep my vow,” wailed the latter, “and follow that wretched girl all over the world!”

“What for?” asked Mrs. Norwood, with an indulgent smile, for she was well used to Amy’s extravagances.

“To recover my perfectly good five dollars, of course! Oh, dear, what a bore!”

“Oh, so a girl palmed this off on you! Suppose you tell me some more about it,” said Mr. Norwood. “I am intensely interested.”

Jessie and Amy told him about the strange girl who had accosted them before the Dainties Shop and gave as faithful a description as they could of her. Then they suddenly remembered the interrupted radio concert and dashed off to Jessie’s room to enjoy what was left of it.

Madame Elva, a great favorite of the girls, at the broadcasting station of the Stratford Electric Company, gave several charming selections and the remainder of the program was so unusually fine and interesting that the girls became completely absorbed and forgot for the time all such matters as tall thin girls and troublesome five-dollar bills.

It was not till the following morning that Jessie revived the subject. The four of them, Jessie, Amy, her brother Darry, and Burd Alling were sitting on the Norwood veranda talking over plans for the trip to Forest Lodge. The girls had already, earlier in the day, talked with Miss Alling over the telephone.

It was a fine morning and the handsome Norwood estate had never looked pleasanter and more luxurious than it did in the full glare of the morning sunlight.

The smooth sweep of lawn, sloping down to the broad, shaded boulevard, was dotted with flowering shrubs. Beside the house and a little to the rear, began the beautiful rose gardens which were the pride of Mrs. Norwood’s heart, and of all Roselawn as well.

In fact, this section where the Norwoods and the Drews lived had been dubbed Roselawn by reason of the beautiful and gorgeous rose gardens that abounded in that district.

On the farther side of Bonwit Boulevard was the home of the Drews, a rambling old house which had once been a farmhouse but had been remodeled by Mr. Drew into an up-to-date and handsome building. There dwelt Wilbur and Sarah Drew, the parents of Amy, Amy, herself, and her brother Darrington—the latter, however, only on those rare occasions when Yale “relaxed her grip on him.”

The four young people had had many good times together and since Jessie and Amy had “discovered” radio their adventures had been replete with thrills and excitement.

The two girls had astonished their friends and relatives by successfully installing a radio set in Jessie’s room.

Then one day had come a mysterious call out of the air, and how the girls went to the rescue of a girl wanted as a witness in an important law case has been told in detail in the first volume of this series, entitled “The Radio Girls of Roselawn.”

Since that time the girls had made the acquaintance of the owner of a large sending station and through him had been permitted to get “On the Program,” much to their satisfaction. Then they had gone to “Station Island,” and later had taken a trip on board the Marigold, a steam yacht willed to Darry by his uncle. The vessel took fire, and how the young folks had to fight to escape in safety is related in the volume before this, called “The Radio Girls on Station Island.”

It was of this last adventure that they were thinking and talking now as they sat in idle luxury upon Jessie Norwood’s porch.

“The poor old Marigold is almost a total loss,” Darry said, regretfully. “I have laid her up for repairs, and, judging from the amount of work there is to be done on her, it looks as if she would be in dry dock a considerable time.”

“Oh, dear! No more chance to inspect the bottom of the sea!” sighed Amy. “I think you are too mean, Darry Drew.”

“Well, say,” interrupted Burd, rising from the depths of a comfortable chair and stretching luxuriously, “loth as I am to break up this happy party, I fear I must be going.”

“He has a date and won’t let us in on it,” remarked Amy, reproachfully.

“I sure have,” chuckled Burd, unabashed. “And wait till you see the lady!”

Darry raised his eyebrows and grinned.

“Aunt Emma, Burd?” he asked.

Burd nodded and started for the steps.

“Promised to meet her at the train in the old bus,” he said. “And if anything should make me late I should never hear the end of it. Coming, Darry?”

The latter laughingly shook his head.

“Go ahead, old lad,” he said. “I am not looking for punishment just yet.”

“Why, don’t you like Miss Alling?” asked Jessie, surprised.

“I do. She is the salt of the earth,” replied Darry, emphatically, adding with a rueful smile: “The only trouble is, she doesn’t like me. Has a fixed opinion that I am a bad influence for Burd, or something of the sort.”

“Well, aren’t you?” asked his sister, maliciously, adding quickly, as Burd seemed about to depart: “Oh, let me go along, Burd, I feel a severe attack of curiosity coming on. I must meet Aunt Emma.”