The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House written by Laura Lee Hope

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THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE

Or, Doing Their Best for the Soldiers

by

LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of _The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale_, _The Moving Picture Girls_,
_The Bobbsey Twins_, _Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue_, _Six Little
Bunkers at Grandma Bell's_, etc.

Illustrated

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

* * * * *

BOOKS FOR GIRLS

BY LAURA LEE HOPE

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SERIES

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT OAK FARM
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS UNDER THE PALMS
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT ROCKY RANCH
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT SEA
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS IN WAR PLAYS

THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES
(Twelve Titles)

THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
(Eight Titles)

SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES
(Five Titles)

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

* * * * *

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I HERO WORSHIP
II THE ACCIDENT
III THE SHADOW OF MYSTERY
IV MRS. SANDERSON'S STORY
V FUN AND SOLDIERS
VI PLANNING CAPTURE
VII A LARK IN THE OPEN
VIII ENTER SERGEANT MULLINS
IX THE BAYONET DRILL
X ALARMING SYMPTOMS
XI POLITE KIDNAPPERS
XII WHERE LOVE IS DEAF
XIII THE COPPERHEAD
XIV THE REINS TIGHTEN
XV THE FATEFUL DAY
XVI SPARRING FOR TIME
XVII TEARS AND PATRIOTISM
XVIII AFTER THE BOYS LEFT
XIX REAL TRAGEDY
XX THE MOTORCYCLIST AGAIN
XXI THE CHASE
XXII STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS
XXIII THE MIRACLE
XXIV MYSTERY EXPLAINED
XXV TO "CARRY ON"

CHAPTER I

HERO WORSHIP

"Oh, Mollie, please be careful!"

The big car skidded perilously around a sharp curve and chug-chugged
merrily down the road.

"Goodness, I've been careful so long I'm afraid it will grow on me,"
Mollie Billette, sometimes known as "Billy," retorted, a determined set to
her pretty chin. "Someway, I've got to get it out of my system."

The automobile, a big seven-passenger car, belonged to Mollie, and the
four Outdoor Girls, having secured a half-holiday from their work at the
Hostess House, were out for recreation.

As may have been gathered, Mollie was driving. Amy Blackwell, fearful of
an accident, was in the seat beside her, while Grace Ford and Betty
Nelson, their beloved Little Captain, occupied the tonneau and amused
themselves by laughing at Amy's fears.

"Well, but you needn't take it out on us," Amy said in reply to Mollie's
assertion. "If you're going to take many more of those two-wheel turns,
I'm going to get out and walk. Oh, Mol-lie!" The speech ended in a wail,
as Mollie wickedly rounded another curve, jolting Amy half out of her
seat.

"I don't know but what I agree with Amy," drawled Grace, from the tonneau,
helping herself to a chocolate, upon which Betty's eye had just rested
longingly. "I've been bumped around so much I can't tell whether I'm a
girl or a scrambled egg. Now, look what you did!" A sudden lurch of the
big car had sent the box of chocolates to the floor, where its contents
rolled about aggravatingly at their feet. "Come back here, Mollie
Billette, and pick them up. That's the least--"

The rest of the sentence was never uttered, for Mollie brought the car to
so sudden a stop that Grace and Betty both lurched forward and narrowly
escaped bumping their noses on the back of the seat in front of them.

"Sure," said the reckless driver, turning her bright black eyes
expectantly upon them. "Will you promise to give me all I pick up?"

"All you--" Grace was beginning, striving desperately to recover her
breath and her dignity at the same time, the accomplishment of which feat
was decidedly retarded by growing indignation. "Goodness, I never heard
such a--"

"Very well," returned Mollie, and, without deigning to parley further,
turned determinedly to the wheel. "That's all I wanted to know--"

"Just a minute, Mollie, dearest," Betty's laughing voice broke in. "You
know I'm not worrying about the chocolates at all, but I'm not
particularly anxious to spoil my perfectly good shoes with crushed
chocolate or, on the other hand, frump my perfectly good nose in a vain
attempt to pick them--"

"Which, candy or shoes?" Mollie broke in impishly.

"Candy," answered Betty soberly. "As I was saying, neither of these
alternatives appeal to me, so, with your kind permission, I would beg you
to hold your horses--"

"As the vulgar herd would say," again murmured Mollie.

"Exactly--as the vulgar herd would say," agreed Betty, dimpling adorably,
"--until we have a chance to collect the scattered sweets."

"You win," Mollie capitulated, speaking in a tone reserved for the "Little
Captain." "Only please make Grace hurry or the afternoon will be over
before she begins."

"Goodness, listen to it--" Grace was beginning, straightening indignantly
from her stooping posture and preparing once more to enter the fray. "When
it's all her fault, anyway--" But Betty upset both speech and dignity by
unceremoniously pulling her down again.

"Come on! Hurry, Gracie!" she commanded. "And don't overlook any, because
there's nothing so messy as a chocolate--"

"As if there were any chance of Grace's overlooking a chocolate!" scoffed
Mollie. "Why, all she has to do is whistle to 'em and they come rolling up
obediently."

"Goodness, who'd want them anyway, after they've rolled around and picked
up all the dust and millions of germs from the bottom of the car?"
grumbled Grace, cross at having to exert herself to even so small an
extent. Grace, as my old readers doubtless remember, had been born with an
ease-loving disposition that not even close association with the other
Outdoor Girls had served to change. Perhaps, as Mollie had once remarked,
that was why the girls were so fond of her--because she was "so
different."

"Well, if you don't want 'em," Mollie replied practically, "why didn't you
agree to my proposition? I promised to eat them for you, germs and all,
and all I got for my sacrifice was one withering glance--"

"At that you're lucky," Grace retorted, straightening up from a spirited
chase of the last elusive chocolate, red of face and fierce of eye. "Some
time I'll come to the end of my patience, and then, Mollie Billette, you'd
better look out."

"My!" chuckled Betty, "isn't she fierce? Never mind, honey, Roy will give
you another box, if you ask him very prettily."

"Goodness, if he can't do it without being asked," retorted Grace crossly,
"he can keep his old candies."

"If I thought you meant that, I'd say you ought to be ashamed of
yourself," put in Amy, with unaccustomed spirit, as Mollie threw in the
clutch and the big car started off again. "Anybody that had been as good
to you as Roy has been--"

"Well, I don't know that you've been particularly neglected," retorted
Grace, meaningly, while Amy reddened. "I never thought that Will could be
such a perfect Romeo."

"Oh, dear," murmured Betty protestingly. "Can't we have just one good
time, without bringing the boys into it?"

"Now, see who's talking," chuckled Mollie delightedly, changing into high
and driving with wild, care-free recklessness along the smooth road. "Oh,
Betty darling, much as I love you, there do come times when you make me
laugh."

"Well, it's good to know I'm bringing happiness into some dark life,"
retorted Betty good-naturedly. "At least I have not lived in vain."

"And they were just mad," Mollie continued, as though talking to herself,
"when they found we were going off this afternoon without them."

"Yes, and isn't it funny?" agreed Grace lazily. "They think they're so
important."

"Well, they are," announced Amy suddenly, and even Mollie turned an amazed
eye upon her.

"I think they're the most important people in the world," Amy continued
stoutly. "I guess if we were going to give up our lives for somebody else
we might think we were important, too."

"Oh, I didn't mean that way," Mollie returned, her eyes once more turning
to the ribbon of road ahead while the girls' bright faces sobered
thoughtfully. "Because when it comes to a thing like giving up their
lives--well, I think they're the bravest--" Her voice broke, and in an
effort to hide her emotion she nearly sent the car over the side of the
road and into a six-foot ditch.

"Brave," repeated Betty, turning her eyes to the far horizon to hide the
mist that suddenly gathered in them. "I don't think that's any word for
our boys at all--"

"They don't seem to realize what they're going into," Amy broke in
eagerly. "Or, if they do, they won't talk about it, or let any one else--"

"Oh, I guess it isn't that they don't realize it," Grace interrupted
thoughtfully. "You know my father always used to say that a man who never
knew what it was to be afraid wasn't really brave at all. He said it was
the man who was scared to death in his heart, that gritted his teeth and
went ahead and faced things anyway, that deserves all the credit."

"I presume that's right," said the Little Captain, leaning forward
earnestly. "I don't suppose there is any one in the world who really
enjoys the thought of losing an arm or a leg, or being broken in health
for the rest of his life. I think what our boys are doing is just to take
the fear of that with a smile and go ahead gayly to face whatever may
come. Brave--" Her voice trailed off, and for a long time there was
silence while the big car hummed rhythmically along the road and the miles
swept by uncounted.

"Of course, there are lots of people," Betty resumed after a while, "who
say the boys just enlisted for the love of adventure, the love of a good
fight, and I suppose that had something to do with it."

"Of course it had," Mollie agreed. "And that's one thing that makes it
harder for us who have to stay at home and can't have any of the thrill
and excitement that helps to carry the boys through. But it's only one of
a dozen reasons, after all."

"I wish we knew when they were going," said Grace, irrelevantly. "The
suspense is worse than anything else. It's like cutting a dog's tail off
an inch at a time."

"Goodness, isn't she complimentary?" flung back Mollie, laughing. "You can
compare yourself to a four-footed dog, Grace, but please leave me out of
it."

"Did you ever hear of a two-footed dog?" Grace retorted.

"To change the subject," Betty interposed hastily, seeking to avoid a
storm. "Don't you think it's almost time to be turning back? We've gone
farther than--Oh, Mollie! Girls! Look!"

They had rounded a curve in the road at their usual breakneck speed, and
Mollie stopped the car with a jolt that very nearly sent its occupants
flying into the roadway.

Before them, not twenty yards away, a little figure in black lay huddled
in the road while the motorcyclist who had caused the accident, sped by
the girls, exhaust open and head lowered.

Dazedly they gazed after machine and rider for a minute till they
disappeared round a turn in the road. Then, with a cry of dismay, Betty
tumbled out of the car, followed by the other girls.

The prostrate figure in the road lay very, very still.

CHAPTER II

THE ACCIDENT

"Betty, is she dead?"

"Oh, I hope not," said Betty, white-faced and pitying, as she bent over
the little old woman. "That man ought to be hung! I'll loosen her collar.
And, Grace, see if you can find some water. Hurry, dear."

And while the girls are ministering to the poor little victim of the
accident, the opportunity will be taken to tell new readers something
about the Outdoor Girls and their activities and adventures in other
volumes of this series.

Betty Nelson, gay and fun-loving, possessed the natural gift of leadership
which had earned for her the title of "Little Captain." The girls adored
her and followed her unquestioningly wherever she led.

Grace Ford was a graceful, tall, pretty girl with a decided and insatiable
fondness for chocolate candy. At the outbreak of the war, or rather, at
the time of America's entry into the war, her brother Will had caused her
great unhappiness by his failure to enlist with the other boys of her
acquaintance. The mystery had been satisfactorily explained later,
however, and when this story opens, Will was on his way to make a splendid
soldier in America's army of democracy.

There was a bit of French blood in Mollie Billette, or "Billy," as the
girls sometimes called her. Bright black eyes which could, upon occasion,
snap fire and a rather unruly temper attested to this French ancestry.

The last one of the quartette was Amy Blackford, quiet and retiring, but
given to occasional outbursts which never failed to surprise and delight
the girls. The mystery which at one time had surrounded her origin had
been cleared up some years before by the finding of Henry Blackford, her
long-lost brother.

How the girls formed a camping and tramp club and the fun they had on
their interesting and adventurous tour, has been told in the first volume
of the series, entitled "The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale."

After this the girls had many adventures, first at Rainbow Lake, to which
they went on another tour, this time in an automobile. From there they
went to a winter camp where they had many varied and exciting experiences
on skates and iceboats. Then followed a glorious trip to Florida, where
the girls braved many dangers and took thrilling trips into the wilds of
the interior.

Their next adventure took them to Ocean View and centered about a
mysterious box they found in the sand.

Then followed that glorious trip to Pine Island. An aunt of Mollie
Billette had turned her bungalow over to the Outdoor Girls for the summer.
During their strenuous adventures the girls had made many friends among
the boys and young men of Deepdale, and four of these had asked and been
granted permission by the girls to accompany them to Pine Island and pitch
their camp in the woods near by.

One of the young men was Allen Washburn, a rising young lawyer and a great
admirer of Betty. Another was Will Ford, Grace's brother, and a third was
his high school chum, Frank Haley. The fourth, Roy Anderson, had been
drawn into the circle chiefly through his admiration for Grace.

During that eventful summer on Pine Island the young people had
accidentally discovered a gypsy cave, concealed by underbrush, and had
succeeded not only in rounding up the band of gypsies but in recovering
several valuable articles that had been stolen from the girls.

Their last adventure, related in the volume directly preceding this one,
and entitled "Outdoor Girls in Army Service," found the girls and boys
again at Pine Island, but under very much altered conditions. America had
entered the great World War and all the boys but Will Ford had
volunteered. Later, the boys were called to Camp Liberty, some distance
from Deepdale, and the girls conceived the plan of opening a Hostess House
for the benefit of the relatives and friends of the boys. The plan worked
out very satisfactorily.

While still at Pine Island the girls and boys had come upon a suspicious
looking man in the woods. Upon finding himself discovered the man had made
his escape, but in his hurry had dropped a letter which the girls found to
their disgust was written in code. They decided that the man must have
been a German spy.

At Camp Liberty the girls succeeded in rounding up the spy, and found, to
their surprise, that Will Ford, who was in the Secret Service, had been
engaged all that time in tracking him to earth. Will, having accomplished
his mission, immediately enlisted.

Now, at the time this story opens, the girls were still at the Hostess
House and looking forward apprehensively to the time, now imminent, when
the boys would be ordered across the sea to fight for the country they
loved.

"I'll go with Grace," volunteered Amy, in answer to Betty's request for
water. "I don't suppose we can find any, but we'll try."

The two girls hurried off, leaving Mollie and Betty to loosen the woman's
collar and rub her cold hands.

"Betty, Betty, is she dead?" Mollie was crying for perhaps the hundredth
time, when the woman herself answered the question by opening her eyes and
looking vacantly about her.

"Who--are--you?" she queried faintly, struggling to rise.

"Oh, please don't try to get up just yet," Betty pleaded, looking very
sweet and charming in her solicitude. "I don't think you're strong
enough--"

But the woman seemed of a different mind, and made such a desperate effort
to raise herself that Betty had no alternative but to help her to her
feet.

The girls supported the unsteady little figure while the dim old eyes
roved questioningly about.

"I--got--hurt!" she gasped, and then quite suddenly fainted again.

"Oh, Betty!" moaned Mollie, her face white with pity. "She's hurt worse,
much worse, than we thought she was! Oh, what shall we do?"

"There's only one thing to do," replied Betty, trying to hide the tremor
in her voice. "We'll have to get her to the hospital, and in a hurry."

"But Grace and Amy!" gasped Mollie. "We can't go without them."

"We can at least get her into the car," Betty said, indicating the limp
little figure in the roadway. "You take her feet, Mollie, and I'll take
her head. We haven't spent all our lives outdoors for nothing."

Between them they succeeded in carrying their burden to the car and
settled her gently in the tonneau.

"Oh, if Grace and Amy would only come!" Mollie was crying distractedly
when the girls themselves burst through the underbrush, crying
despairingly that they had not been able to find water, that there was not
a house anywhere for miles around.

But Betty cut their lamentations short and hurried them into the car.

"But where do I come in?" gasped Grace, as Betty dropped into the back
seat beside the little old woman and took the poor unconscious head in her
arms.

"Oh, anywhere," answered Betty indifferently, her mind on one object only.
"On the floor or on the roof or anywhere, only hurry. Now, Mollie dear,
drive as you never drove before."

Mollie obediently threw in the clutch, and the heavy car shot forward,
throwing Grace to a seat on the floor where she fell with more haste than
dignity.

Nobody noticed her, however, and even a growing bump on her forehead
received scant attention. All were too intent upon the matter at hand.

At this spot the road was very narrow and on each side sloped down sharply
about ten or twelve feet to the level of the fields. It seemed almost an
impossibility to turn the car in that narrow space without precipitating
it down either one or the other of the steep banks.

After many fruitless attempts and barely escaped tragedies, however,
Mollie finally succeeded, and the car was sent flying down the white
stretch of road that led to Camp Liberty and the hospital.

"Oh, I hope we'll get there in time," Amy murmured over and over again,
and kept looking at the pathetic little victim. "Is she still breathing,
Betty? Are you sure?"

To this Betty always nodded in the affirmative, her little mouth grimly
set, her eyes fixed steadily ahead, as though she would draw their
destination nearer to them by the very force of her desire.

"I wonder," Mollie flung back at them from between clenched teeth, "what
that motorcyclist looked like. I'd like to meet him again--with a firing
squad."

"Why I saw him," came Grace's muffled voice from the floor of the car.

"So did I," added Amy.

"So you would recognize him again?" Mollie demanded eagerly, swerving the
car perilously near the edge of the road.

"Are you sure?" added Betty, taking her eyes from the far horizon and
regarding Grace intently.

Both girls nodded vigorously.

"His head was down, of course," Amy continued, "but I'd know his face in a
minute if I saw it again. Eyes close together, long nose--"

"And a little mustache," Grace finished eagerly. "The kind Percy Falconer
used to wear and we girls called an eyebrow on his lip."

"He must have been a thing of beauty," commented Mollie.

"He had the meanest kind of face," said Amy, with a little shudder. "The
kind you wouldn't like to meet on a dark night."

"I should have judged as much from your description," said Betty dryly.
"There's one good thing about him--we ought to be able to recognize him
easily."

"You talk as though you expected to meet him again," said Amy, looking at
her curiously.

"I do," answered Betty determinedly. "Some time we're going to find that
fellow and make him pay for what he's done. Think of it!" she added,
turning upon them suddenly while her eyes flashed fire. "To run down a
helpless old woman in the road and then not even stop to find out whether
you've killed her or not! We'll find him if we have to search the country
for fifty miles around!"

CHAPTER III

THE SHADOW OF MYSTERY

The girls never forgot that mad ride to Camp Liberty. Mile after mile sped
by on wings, and it was not till they were on the outskirts of the town
itself that the victim of the accident showed signs of returning
consciousness.

Then she sighed, moved her head a little restlessly on Betty's shoulder,
and opened her eyes.

"Oh, dear," she said, faintly but so abruptly that Betty and Grace
started. "I knew I'd have--to do it--some day!"

When the girls came to know her better they no longer wondered at her
quaint and unexpected sayings. But at the moment this queer statement,
coming as it did from one who they thought must be hovering at death's
door, rather startled them.

"Wh--what?" stammered Betty, bewildered, while the others stared with wide
eyes. "What did you say?"

"I said," replied the surprising old woman, in a stronger voice, trying
unsteadily to straighten herself in the seat and raising trembling hands
to her rather dilapidated old hat, "that I was sure to come to it some
day. There's a fate in such things."

The girls looked at each other uncertainly, and into the minds of each
flashed the startled suspicion that perhaps the poor old soul was mentally
defective. Or, maybe, the accident--

The woman seemed to sense something of their bewilderment, and into her
eyes, still bright in spite of her age and what she had just gone through,
there came a twinkle--yes, a real twinkle.

"No, I'm not crazy," she assured them, regaining her strength with amazing
quickness. "You see, it seemed kind o' funny to me after all these years
o' swearin' that I'd never ride in one o' these gasoline cars to find
myself in one after all,--and at my time o' life."

The girls gasped with relief, but still had the strange feeling of one who
has been speeding over the water with all sails set and suddenly finds
herself in the midst of a dead calm.

"B-but," stammered Amy, voicing the general sentiment, "we thought--were
afraid--you were hurt badly--"

"Guess maybe I'd have thought so, too, if I'd had the chance," responded
the surprising old lady ruefully. "Pretty well mussed up, I guess, and
stunned. Shouldn't wonder if I found a heap o' bruises around me
somewhere--but no bones broke. You see," she added, as though imparting a
great secret, "the Sandersons' bones jest never was made to break. Now,
there was our cousins--the Petersons--they was different. One o' that
family wouldn't dare waggle his finger too hard for fear it would bust on
him. You see, they was just naturally made that way. My son, Willie," here
the brave voice lowered a trifle and tears rose to the bright old eyes,
"he used to call them in fun--always jokin', that boy was--the Break-bone
Petersons."

"But are you sure you aren't hurt?" Betty insisted, still with that
curious feeling of having the wind taken out of her sails. "You see," she
added hastily, as the twinkle returned to the old woman's eyes, "we were
going to take you to the hospital, but if you are really sure there are no
bones broken, I think you would like the Hostess House better."

"Hostess House?" repeated the old woman, her eyes widening with interest.
"Yes, I've heard a lot about those places. That's where the sweethearts
and mothers and wives of the soldier boys go, isn't it--to meet them--?"

"Yes," Betty responded eagerly. "You see, that's what we are doing,
helping to make them feel at home. That's why we want you to come with us
now and stay there until you feel better."

"But I'm not a mother, or a wife, or a sweetheart of any of those boys,"
objected the little old woman, while the same cloud swept over her face,
leaving it wrinkled and old. "I--I might have been--if--if--Willie--"

"But that doesn't make any difference," Grace assured her, speaking for
the first time and laying a white, soft hand over the knotted, wrinkled
one. "We want you to stay with us and rest while we try to find the man
who ran you down."

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