Читать книгу Daughter of the Coast Guard - Betty Baxter Anderson - Страница 3

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Winifred Travers tossed her books recklessly into the locker, and turned to her friend, Cherry Hudson.

“How’d you like a chauffeur for that interview?” she offered, gaily. “The Gas Gull is outside with itching tires.”

“Grand! It’s a two-mile hike from town, and I have to go to the Tribune office first.”

The two friends were almost the first to leave Lake Haven High’s doors that brilliant October afternoon, and Win’s small roadster sped away from the parking lane.

“What a day!” Cherry murmured. “Wouldn’t you know I’d arrange to go talk to an old lady about her collection of hooked rugs on the best kind of day for sailing?”

“Don’t mourn too much,” the dark-haired girl consoled her, as she dexterously parked the car. “I’ll bet Denny is busy, and wouldn’t be bothered with us anyway.”

Cherry led the way through the small front office of the Lake Haven Tribune, which was now a completely Hudson family enterprise, since her brothers had returned from college to take staff positions. Her father, Dennis Hudson, Sr., had been editor and publisher of the small daily for more than twenty years. Twenty-three year old Denny had assumed the advertising manager’s post two years before, and twenty-one year old Bill had become city and news editor at his graduation last spring. Cherry joyfully followed in their footsteps; she covered the school news, gathered personals, wrote minor features and longed for the day when she’d discover a really important scoop.

Now, as the girls entered the crowded little newsroom, they were greeted with a whoop by Bill. “My goodness gracious, but I’m glad to see you!” He tossed his green eyeshade on top of a litter of proof, letters, pamphlets and copy paper which covered his desk. “You can take the dog watch. Miss Lippincott’s at a Woman’s Club tea; Dad and Denny have just left to see a big accident out on Indian road, and I want to follow them.”

“But I’ve an interview—,” Cherry wailed.

“Better change it,” Bill shouted, as he rushed out the front door. “Don’t know how long I’ll be gone....”

“Well!” Cherry sank to the wobbly swivelchair at Bill’s desk, and reached for the telephone. “It looks as if our ride were out, let alone the sail——”

She telephoned old Granny Williams, maker of dozens of hooked rugs, to postpone the time for the interview.

Winifred chuckled. “A newspaper office is almost as exciting as a Coast Guard station—but there’ll always be the dog watches, when nothing ever happens.”

Cherry looked around the room with a rueful little smile. “There’s one major difference. A Coast Guard station is always neat. I wonder if there was ever a tidy journalist?”

Winifred, tall and graceful and dark-haired, perched on the corner of the absent society editor’s desk. “Is there anything I can help you do while we’re waiting?”

Cherry glanced fondly at her friend. “My dear Win, there is no reason why you should sacrifice yourself on this glorious day, because of my bad luck.”

“This is the kind of day that’s dull at the station. If anything really exciting crops up, this is where we will learn of it first.”

“All right. You’re bringing it on yourself. Which would you rather take—the ten years ago, or the twenty years ago?”

Win looked a little startled, then laughed. “Oh, you mean for the Old Times Column?”

Cherry nodded, and went into the little cubby hole off the news room, which housed the newspaper files; the small morgue for pictures, mats and clippings; and the International Press Association machines, silent now. She brought a huge bound volume, and opened it before Winifred, on the society editor’s desk. “Since you didn’t have a preference, you may take the ten years ago.” A moment later, she brought a slightly smaller volume for herself, and placed it on top of the litter on Bill’s desk.

The girls found the out-of-date ads for clothes and movies and automobiles amusing, and read bits to one another. Both scribbled brief paragraphs from the papers—one or two on national affairs; a few about local political or civic news; and a sentence or two about prominent marriages or parties of the previous decades.

“I’ve finished October fifth’s. Shall I do the next day’s?”

“Might as well. Certainly no signs of returning news hounds, as yet.”

The girls worked on for almost an hour. The telephone rang at infrequent intervals. One of the newsboys strode through, and left a copy of the freshly-printed paper on each desk. The girls took time to glance at the day’s issue, then returned to the dusty files.

“The Dillons entertained one hundred guests at dinner and a musicale, twenty years ago,” Cherry remarked. “Too bad there’s no one here to do things on such a huge scale, any more.”

“Perhaps the Masons will, now that they’ve opened the Dillon mansion after all these years.”

Cherry made a wry face. “Think we’d be invited if they did?”

“Seriously, what do you think of that gal?” Win gathered her notes, closed the big volume with a bang.

“Through? So am I.” Cherry replaced the files before answering the question. “I haven’t made up my mind about Myra Mason. She’s friendly enough, but it somehow doesn’t seem sincere. And I think she overdoes this ‘mysterious past’ business.”

“She’s awfully pretty—and little.” Win had the usual tall girl’s sensitiveness about size.

The front door banged, and all three Hudson men hustled into the tiny office. Cherry’s father, after a brief greeting for the girls, went on into his private office. Bill shoved his sister unceremoniously from his chair and reached for copy paper. Denny, whose advertising work for the day was over, sat on his desk and planted his feet on the chair in front of it.

“Well, isn’t anyone going to tell us about it?” Cherry demanded, in an aggrieved voice.

“It was a nifty wreck,” Denny said. “Went off into one of those sixty-seventy foot ravines, on the Indian road, about four miles south of town. Could have been there hours. No one knows how or when it happened, but that old truck was cracked up plenty.”

Bill looked up in disgust. “It’s a good thing you went into the half-witted advertising end of this business. Poorest summary of a news story I ever heard.”

He turned to the girls and said crisply, “The driver is still unconscious. There are no identification marks of any sort on him or the car. No license plates. No driver’s card. The doctor may be able to estimate the time of the accident, but it must have taken place before daylight, because the lights on the truck were still burning. Accident discovered at three-thirty this afternoon by Bill Lonesby, nearby farmer, who was looking for a strayed calf. The car was full of unmarked fur pelts.”

Cherry’s eyes were shining. “Bill! That sounds like an International Press Association story!”

“It will be,” her brother replied shortly, “as soon as you rattle-tongues clear out, and I can finish writing and filing it.”

“That’s queer,” Win said slowly, as she rose. “It doesn’t strike me as being any particular sort of story. It sounds like smugglers. Are you coming with me, Cherry, to tell Dad?”

The Hudson brothers stared at one another, after the girls hurried out. “My goodness gracious, Denny,” Bill said in a hushed tone, “do you suppose she’s right?”