“What a heathenish hour to get up!” Doris protested. “I was having the most beautiful dream.”
“If we are carried past the junction, it won’t be a dream,” Mrs. Mallow assured her. “You have less than twenty minutes.”
Doris and Kitty emerged from the dressing room just as the train began to slow down for the junction. They drew their wraps closer about them as they stepped down upon the platform, for the early morning air was brisk and cool.
Silas Baker followed Mrs. Mallow from the car, but Doris and Kitty did not see the magician and rather hoped he had overslept. However, as the train began to move slowly, he swung from the steps, the suitcases in his hands. His tie was crooked, and he had not taken time to shave. “Almost forgot to get up,” he grinned.
The train had stopped some distance from the station, and Mrs. Mallow and the girls looked about uncertainly, wondering which way to go. As they appeared to hesitate, the magician pushed forward.
“This way, ladies,” he directed, picking up Doris’s hat bag. “Just follow your Uncle Dudley. I hit this burg so often I can feel my way around in the dark.”
Without giving Mrs. Mallow an opportunity to rebuke him, he started off toward the station and there was nothing for the others to do but to follow. In a gentlemanly manner, Silas Baker offered to help Mrs. Mallow with her heavy suitcase. She graciously thanked him. As she walked behind the magician, she frowned, for his bold way displeased her. She felt that he was trying to become too friendly with her young charges.
The station was dark and uninviting. A sleepy-eyed clerk was on duty at the window and Mrs. Mallow at once presented herself to purchase tickets for Cloudy Cove.
“Afraid you have a long wait ahead, ma’am,” the agent informed her, as he stamped the tickets. “Number 10 is an hour late.”
“Just our luck,” Kitty yawned. “Wish we could have spent that hour sleeping.”
Ollie Weiser was the only member of the party who did not appear greatly disappointed that the train was not on time. He sat down beside the girls and tried to entertain them with what he considered amusing stories. At first they endeavored to listen politely, but, becoming bored beyond endurance, discouraged his attempts at conversation.
“You say you’re staying at Cloudy Cove a couple of weeks?” he questioned Doris, ignoring the hints. “I’ll be there about that long myself, so we should paint the town red, eh?”
“The color of the town doesn’t interest me in the slightest,” Doris retorted coldly. “I expect to be very busy all the time I am there.” She turned to her chum. “Come, Kitty, let’s go outside and see if the train is coming.”
The two girls arose and left the station, closing the door behind them. The magician started to follow, but, observing that Mrs. Mallow’s stern eye was upon him, slumped back into his seat and relapsed into moody silence.
“Isn’t he the limit?” Kitty demanded, when the girls were alone. “I wish he’d stop trying to make a hit with us.”
“He’s getting worse all the time,” Doris declared. “I suppose he’ll annoy us all the way to Cloudy Cove and perhaps after we get there. Thank goodness, he doesn’t know the name of our hotel.”
“He’ll find it, though. He’s that sort. Don’t you wish he’d miss his train?”
“No chance of that,” Doris sighed. “He’ll sit right there in the station until it comes in. The train is about due now.”
She turned to gaze down the track and observed a block signal move into the quarter position.
“I guess that must be our train coming now,” she said dismally.
“Oh, I wish something would happen to keep that man here! He’ll make life miserable for us all the rest of the way.”
“I suppose we’ll just have to grin and bear it.” As she spoke, Doris cast a baleful glance toward the magician’s two suitcases, which he had left outside the station. Suddenly a strange expression flashed over her face and she gripped her chum by the arm.
“Kitty! I just thought of something!”
“What?”
“It would be a mean sort of trick, though.”
“Oh, what is it? Quick! Before the train gets here! Anything will be better than listening to that man the rest of the day!”
“I know a way to keep him here. We can open the suitcase and let out his snakes! He’d have to capture them before he could leave!”
“Doris! What a brilliant idea!”
“But do you think we should do it? If he should lose his snakes—”
“He won’t lose them. It will just make him miss his train.”
Doris glanced quickly toward the station and then down the track. She could see the train rounding the bend less than a quarter of a mile away.
“Come on,” she cried mischievously. “We’ll just have time to do it! Take care as you pass the station window. If he sees us, we’ll be caught!”
CHAPTER VII
A Distasteful Introduction
With a cautious glance in all directions to make sure that their actions would not be observed, Doris and Kitty slipped over to the large black suitcase which they knew contained the magician’s pet shakes.
“It may be locked,” Kitty whispered anxiously.
Nervously Doris fumbled with the fastening. The case was not locked, but she hesitated to open the lid, shivering at the thought of what was inside.
“Go on, scared cat!” Kitty dared.
Doris opened the lid a crack, and then both girls, frightened at their bravado, fell back, their eyes riveted on the case.
“The snakes aren’t coming out,” Kitty murmured apprehensively. “Give the suitcase a prod with your foot!”
“I should say not! You do it!”
Just at that moment the girls were relieved to see the first snake wriggle through the aperture. Another followed.
“Stay here and watch where they go!” Doris whispered in excitement. “I’ll break the news to our friend Ollie.”
She darted to the station, and flinging open the door, burst in upon the astonished travelers.
“Mr. Weiser, your snakes are getting away!” she cried. “Come quickly or they’ll escape!”
The magician sprang to the door, thrusting Doris aside in his great anxiety to reach his pets. Mrs. Mallow and Silas Baker followed, gathering up their baggage as they heard the rumble of the approaching train.
Ollie Weiser took one look at the empty suitcase and groaned.
“Figi! Figi!” he shouted wildly.
He caught sight of one of the snakes and made a dive for it, just as the train came to a standstill.
“All aboard!” the conductor called.
Mrs. Mallow, Mr. Baker and a strange man who had just driven up in an automobile boarded the train, but the girls were reluctant to leave. Not Until the conductor signalled to the engineer, did they scramble aboard.
The magician had found all but one of his snakes and was still calling wildly for Figi, who remained in hiding. He cast a despairing glance toward the conductor as that worthy swung aboard the moving train.
“Wait! Wait!” he shouted.
Doris leaned out of a window and called