their feet, just as the unwelcome figure of old Reda
emerged from the blackberry patch.

The girls stood staring at the fleeing child. They saw the old women
put her hand up to shade her eyes, that she might better see who they
were, for undoubtedly she suspected Mary had spoken to them. Then Cleo
whispered to Grace:

"Make believe picking something! Don't let her see us looking."

"Here are some more!" called Grace loudly to Madaline, waving a bunch
of quickly gathered daisies and clover. "Wait a minute, and see this
one."

The call was given to throw the old woman off the track, and give her
the impression that nothing more than flower gathering had been their
intent.

Madaline appeared glad enough to see Grace and Cleo coming toward her,
for at that very moment she had decided to run.

"Can you see what--the old woman is doing?" Grace asked Cleo. "Don't
look--back--directly but stop to pick up something, then you can see."

"She must be scolding," replied Cleo, "for she's wagging her head, and
shaking her old brown fist. Dear me, how I hated to let her swallow up
that lovely girl. Do you suppose we can ever rescue her?"

"Do I?" flaunted Grace. "I just can't wait to get at that rescuing. I
guess all our scouting will have to come back to a S.O.S., for never
was there a clearer case of need than this. That hateful old woman has
the child hoodooed, or hypnotized, or flimflammed," she declared,
giving a wide choice of active transitive verbs for Cleo to choose from.

"But isn't the girl a darling?" enthused Cleo. "I could just love her
like a picture in a book. And she said she loved us! Wasn't that
quaint!"

"Oh, Madaline! You missed it!" Grace charged the girl who was too
timid to interview Maid Mary. "We are going to find her house. And
she's just _wonderful_." This last was pronounced with that effusion
peculiar to the modern use of the word "wonderful." Nothing could
possibly be more or at least so superlative.

"Why didn't you lasso the old woman?" teased Madaline, referring to the
trick Grace played on another occasion told in our first volume.

"I would have, only you were too far away to pull the rope!" fired back
Grace. Nevertheless her tone implied she would not stop at rope or
swing, if she found such a feat necessary in the rescue of Maid Mary.

"What a queer name--Reda," Cleo reflected, when once again they started
over the rough road toward Cragsnook. "It ought to be pr