Camp Fire Girls Solve A Mystery

CHAPTER I
THE EMPTY HOUSE


Katherine Adams stepped from the train at Oakwood, glanced expectantly up
and down the station platform, hesitated a moment, and then, picking out
a conspicuous spot under a glaring arc light, deposited her suitcase on
the ground with a thump, mounted guard beside it and patiently waited for
Nyoda to find her in the surging crowd.

It was two days before Christmas, and travel was heavy. It seemed as
though the entire population of Oakland was either coming home,
departing, or rushing madly up and down before the panting train in
search of friends and relatives. Katherine was engulfed in a tidal wave
of rapturous greetings that rolled over her from every side, as a
coachful of soldiers, home for Christmas, were met and surrounded by the
waiting lines of townspeople.

Katherine stood still, absorbed in watching the various reunions taking
place around her, while the tidal wave gradually subsided, receding in
the direction of Main Street. The principal stream had already flowed
past her and the crowd was rapidly thinning out when Katherine woke to
the realization that she was still unclaimed. There was no sign of Nyoda.
The expectant smile faded from Katherine’s face and in its place there
came a look of puzzled wonder. What had happened? Why wasn’t Nyoda there
to meet her? Was there some mistake? Wasn’t this Oakwood? Had she gotten
off at the wrong station, she thought in sudden panic. No, there was the
sign beside the door of the green boarded station; its gilded letters
gleamed down reassuringly at her. Katherine stood on one foot and
pondered. Was this the day she was supposed to come? What day was it,
anyway? The thick pad calendar beside the ticket seller’s window inside
the station proclaimed it to be the twenty-third. All right so far; she
hadn’t mixed up the date, then. She had written Nyoda that she would come
on the twenty-third, on the five-forty-five train. The train had been on
time. Where was Nyoda?

Katherine was assailed by a sudden doubt. Had she mailed that letter?
Yes, she was certain of that. She had run out to the mail box at ten
o’clock at night especially to mail it. What had gone wrong? Why wasn’t
there someone to meet her?

She looked around at the walls as if expecting them to answer, and her
roving eye caught sight of the lettering on a glass door opposite. The
telephone! Goose! Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Of course there
was some mistake responsible for Nyoda’s not meeting her, but in a moment
that would be all straightened out.

She sprang across to the booth and picked up the directory hanging beside
the telephone. Then a queer, bewildered look came into her eyes and she
stood still with the book hanging uncertainly from her fingers. She had
forgotten Nyoda’s name! She twisted her brows into a pucker and made a
frantic effort to recall it. No use; it was a fruitless endeavor. Where
that name used to be in her mind there was now a blank space, empty and
echoless as the original void. It was _too_ ridiculous! Katherine gave a
little stamp of vexation. It was not the first time a name had popped out
of her mind at a critical moment. And sometimes—O horror! it didn’t come
back again for days. Was there ever anything so utterly absurd as the
plight in which she now found herself? She knew Nyoda’s name as well as
her own. M. M. It certainly began with an M.

After nearly an hour’s exasperated wracking of her brains she gave it up
in disgust and stalked out of the station. Not for worlds would she have
confided to anyone her plight.