"Oh, let her go," Amy declared. "Why worry? You can't watch her every minute we are here. She can't very well fall overboard from this island."
"I don't know. She manages to do the most unexpected things," said Jessie.
But there was so much to do in helping settle things and make the sparsely furnished bungalow comfortable that Jessie did not think for a while about Henrietta. Besides, she was desirous of setting up the radio instruments at once and stringing the antenna.
Darry and Burd helped the girls do this last. They worked hard, for they had first of all to plant in the sands some distance from the house an old mast that Mr. Norwood bought so as to erect the wires at least thirty feet above the ground.
The antenna were not completed at nightfall. Then, of a sudden, everybody began to wonder about Henrietta. Where was she? It was remembered that she had not been seen during most of the afternoon.
"Oh, dear!" worried Jessie. "It is my fault. I should not have let her go out alone that time, Amy."
"She said she wanted to see her island, I remember," admitted her chum, with some gravity. "And this island is a pretty big place, and it is growing dark."
"She could not get into any trouble if she stayed on Hackle Island,"
declared Darry. "What a kid!"
"And she certainly couldn't have got off it," suggested Burd.
"We must look around for her," said Jessie, with conviction. "Don't tell Momsy. She will worry. She thinks I have had my eye on the child all the time."
"You certainly would have what they call a roving eye if you managed to keep it on Henrietta," giggled Burd Alling. "She darts about like a swallow."
Jessie felt it to be no joking matter. The four young people separated and went in different directions to hunt for the missing child. Station, or Hackle, Island at this end was mostly sand dunes or open flats. A little sparse grass grew in bunches, and there were clumps of beach plum bushes. Towards the golf course the land was higher and there real lawn and trees of some size were growing.
The low sand dunes stretched in gray windrows right across the island.
Jessie tried to think what might have first attracted Henrietta at this end of the island. She did not believe that she would go far from the bungalow, although Amy wanted to start at once for the hotel. That was the object that attracted her first of all.
Jessie ran toward the far side of the island. It was growing dark and everything on both sea and shore looked gray and misty. The seabirds swept overhead and whistled mournfully. Jessie shouted Henrietta's name as she ran.
But she began to labor up and down the sand dunes with difficulty. It frightened Jessie Norwood very much whenever Henrietta got into mischief or into danger. No knowing what harm might come to her on this lonely part of Station Island.
Nor was this fear in Jessie's mind bred entirely by the feeling that it was her duty to look out for Henrietta. The child was an appealing little creature, though she had had little chance in the world thus far to develop her better and worthier qualities. The pity that Jessie Norwood had felt for the untamed girl at first was now blossoming into love.
"What would I ever say to Bertha and Mrs. Foley if anything happened to the child!" Jessie murmured.
CHAPTER XI--TROUBLE
Jessie was beginning to learn that to guard the welfare of a lively youngster like Henrietta was no small task. The worst of it was, she was so fond of the little girl that she worried about her much of the time.
And Henrietta seemed to have a penchant for getting into trouble.
Jessie called, and she called again and again, as she ploughed through the sand, and heard in reply only the shrieks of the gulls and peewees.
Gray clouds had rolled up from the Western horizon and covered completely the glow of sunset. It was going to be a drab evening, and all the hollows were already filled with shadow.
Jessie toiled up the slope of one sand-hill after another, calling and listening, calling and listening, but all to no avail. What _could_ have become of Henrietta Haney?
Suddenly Jessie fairly tumbled into an excavation in the sand. Although she could not see the place, her hands told her that the hole was deep and the sand somewhat moist. The hole had been dug recently, for the surface of the dunes was still warm from the rays of the sun.
She stumbled down the slope of the sand dune and found another hole, then another. Dark as it was in the hollow, when she kicked something that rattled, she knew what it was.
"Henrietta's pail and shovel!" Jessie exclaimed aloud. "She has been here."
She picked up the articles. Before leaving New Melford she had herself bought the pail and shovel for the freckle-faced little girl.
Where had the child gone from here? Already Jessie was some distance from the group of bungalows. As Henrietta insisted upon believing that most of the island belonged to her "by good rights," there was no telling what part of it she might have aimed for after playing in the sand.
Jessie shouted again, her voice wailing over the sands almost as mournfully as the cries of the sea-fowl. Again and again she shouted, but without hearing a human sound in reply. She labored on, and it grew so dark that she began to wish one of the others had come with her. Even Amy's presence would have been a comfort.
She came to the brink of a yawning sand-pit, the bottom of which was so dark she could not see it. She began skirting this hollow, crying out as she went, and almost in tears.
Suddenly Darry's voice answered her. She was fond of Darry--thought him a most wonderful fellow, in fact. But there was just one thing Jessie wanted of him now.
"Have you seen her?" she cried.
"Not a bit. I have been away down to the lighthouse. Nobody has seen her there."
"Oh! Who you lookin' for?" suddenly asked a voice out of the darkness.
"Henrietta!" shrieked Jessie, and plunged down into the dark sand-pit.
"Who's lost?" asked the little girl again. "Ow-ow! I--I guess I been asleep, Miss Jessie."
"Has that kid shown up at last?" grumbled Darry, climbing to the sand ridge.
"Is it night?" demanded Henrietta, as Jessie clasped her with an energy that betrayed her relief. "Why, it wasn't dark when I came down here."
"How did you get down there?" demanded Darry from above.
"I rolled down. I guess I was tired. I dug so much sand----"
"Did you dig all those holes I found, Henrietta?" demanded the relieved Jessie.
"Why, no, Miss Jessie. I didn't dig holes. I dug sand and let the holes be," declared the freckle-faced little girl scornfully.
Darry sat down and laughed, but while he laughed Jessie toiled up the yielding sand hill with her hand clasping Henrietta's. "Ow-ow!" yawned the child again. "When do we eat, Miss Jessie? Or is eating all over?"
"Listen to the kid!" ejaculated Darry. "Here! Give her to me. I'll carry her. Want to go pickaback, Hen?"
"Well, it's dark and nobody can see us. I don't mind," said Henrietta soberly. "But I guess I'm too big to be lugged around that way in common. 'Specially now that I own this island--or, most of it--and am going to have money of my own."
"She's harping on that idea too much," observed Darry to Jessie, in a low tone.
The latter thought so too. Funny as little Henrietta was, the stressing of her expected fortune was going to do her no good. Jessie began to see that this fault had to be corrected.
"Goodness!" she thought, stumbling along after the young collegian and his burden, "I might as well have a younger sister to take care of.
Children, as Mrs. Foley says, are a sight of trouble."