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CHAPTER VIII
Mystery in the Night

Helen and Tom hurried home from school Thursday noon, ate a hasty lunch and then went on to the Herald office to finish their task of putting out their first issue of the paper.

Helen stopped at the postoffice for the mail and Tom went on to unlock the office, put the pages on the press and start printing the last run.

In the mail Helen found a letter postmarked Rubio, Arizona, and in her Father’s familiar handwriting. She ran into the Herald office and on into the composing room where Tom was locking the last page on the old flat-bed press.

“Tom,” she cried, “here’s a letter from Dad!”

“Open it,” he replied. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

Helen was about to tear open the envelope when she paused.

“No,” she decided. “Mother ought to be the one to read it first. I’ll call her and tell her it’s here. She’ll want to come down and get it.”

“You’re right,” agreed Tom as he climbed up on the press. He turned on the motor and threw in the clutch. The old machine clanked back and forth, gathering momentum for the final run of the week.

Helen eagerly scanned the front page as it came off the press. It was heavy with fresh ink but she thrilled at the makeup on page one. There were her stories, the one about the tornado and the other about the high standing of the local school. Tom’s heads looked fine. The paper was bright and newsy – easy to read. She hoped her Dad would be pleased.

With the final run on the press it was Helen’s task to assemble and fold the papers. She donned a heavy apron, piled the papers on one of the makeup tables and placed a chair beside her. With arms moving methodically, she started to work, folding the papers and sliding them off the table onto the chair.

Tom had just got the press running smoothly when there was a grinding crash followed by the groaning of the electric motor.

Helen turned quickly. Something might have happened to Tom. He might have slipped off his stool and fallen into the machinery of the press.

But Tom was all right. He reached for the switch and shut off the power.

“What happened?” gasped Helen, her face still white from the shock.

“Breakdown,” grunted Tom disgustedly. “This antique has been ready for the junk pile for years but Dad never felt he could afford to get a new one or even a good second-hand one.”

“What will we do?” asked Helen anxiously. “We’ve got to get the paper out.”

“I’ll run down to the garage and get Milt Pearsall to come over. He’s a fine mechanic and Dad has called on him before when things have gone wrong with the press.”

Tom hastened out and Helen resumed her task of folding the few papers which had been printed before the breakdown. Everything had been going so smoothly until this trouble. Now they might be delayed hours if the trouble was anything serious.

She heard someone call from the office. It was her mother and she hastened out of the composing room.

“Here’s the letter,” she said, pulling it out of a pocket in her dress. “We knew you’d be anxious to hear.”

“Why didn’t you open it and then telephone me?” her mother asked.

“We could have done that,” Helen admitted, “but we thought you’d like to be the first to open and read it.”

“You’re so thoughtful,” murmured her mother. With hands that trembled in spite of her effort to be calm, she opened the letter and unfolded the single page it contained. Helen waited, tense, until her mother had finished.

“How’s Dad?” she asked.

“His letter is very cheerful,” replied Mrs. Blair, handing it to Helen. “Naturally he is tired but he says the climate is invigorating and he expects to feel better soon.”

“Of course he will,” agreed Helen.

“Where’s Tom?”

“The press broke down and he went to the garage to get Milt Pearsall.”

“I hope it’s nothing serious,” said her mother. “Is there something I can do?”

“If you’ve got the time to spare, I’d like to have you look over our first issue. Here’s a copy.”

Helen’s mother scanned the paper with keen, critical eyes.

“It looks wonderful to me,” she exclaimed. “I like the heads on the front page and you’ve so many good stories. Tom did splendidly on the ads. How proud your father will be when he gets a copy.”

“I thought perhaps you’d like to write his address on a wrapper and we’ll put it in the mail tonight when the other papers go out,” said Helen.

Mrs. Blair nodded and addressed the wrapper Helen supplied.

“If you’re sure there’s nothing I can do at the office,” she said, “I’ll go on to the kensington at Mrs. Henderson’s.”

“Don’t forget to pick up all the news you can at the party,” cautioned Helen.

“I won’t,” promised her mother.

Helen had just finished folding the papers when Tom returned with Milt Pearsall.

The mechanic was a large, heavy-set man with a mop of unruly hair, eyes that twinkled a merry blue, and lips that constantly smiled.

“Hello, Editor,” he boomed. “Press broke again, Tom says. Huh, expected it to happen most anytime. Well, let’s see what’s the matter.”

He eased his bulk down under the press, dug into his tool kit for a flashlight and wormed his way into the machinery.

“Get me the long wrench,” he directed Tom.

The request complied with, there followed a number of thumps and whacks of steel against steel, a groan as Pearsall bumped his head in the crowded quarters, and finally a grunt of satisfaction.

The mechanic crawled from under the press, a smudge of ink across his forehead. He wiped his hands thoughtfully.

“Some day,” he ventured, “that old press is going to fall apart and I won’t be able to tease it back again.”

“What was the trouble?” asked Tom.

“Cross bar slipped out of place and dropped down so it caught and held the bed of the press from moving. Good thing you shut off the power or you might have snapped that rod. Then we’d have been out of luck until I could have made a new one.”

“How much will it be?” Tom asked.

The big mechanic grinned.

“Oh, that’s all right, Tom,” he chuckled. “Just forget to send me a bill for my subscription. That’s the way your Dad and I did.”

“Thanks a lot for helping us out,” said Tom, “and I’ll see that you don’t get a subscription dun.”

Tom climbed back to his place on the press, turned on the power and eased the clutch in gently. Helen watched anxiously, afraid that they might have another breakdown but the old machine clanked along steadily and she picked up the mounting pile of papers and returned to her task of folding.

Paper after paper she assembled, folded and slid onto the pile on the chair. When the chair overflowed with papers she stopped and carried them into the editorial office and piled them on the floor.

Tom finished his press run and went into the editorial office to get out their old hand mailer and start running the papers through to stamp the names and addresses on each one.

After an hour of steady folding Helen’s arms ached so severely she stopped working and went into the editorial office.

“Getting tired?” Tom asked.

She nodded.

“You run the mailer for a while and I’ll fold papers,” said her brother. “That will give you a rest.”

Helen agreed and they switched work. She clicked the papers through the mailer at a steady pace.

“Papers ready?” called the postmaster from his office in the front half of the Herald building.

“The city list is stamped and ready,” replied Helen. “I’ll bring them in right away.”

“Never mind,” said Mr. Hughes, “I’ll save you a trip.”

“Matter of fact,” continued the postmaster when he entered the office, “I wanted to see what kind of an issue you two kids got out.”

Helen handed him an unstamped paper and he sat down in the one vacant chair. She valued the old postmaster’s friendship highly and awaited his comment with unusual interest.

“One of the best issues of the Herald I’ve ever seen,” he enthused when he had finished looking over the paper. “Your stories have got all your Dad’s ‘get up and go’ and these headlines are something new for the Herald. Believe I like ’em.”

“Some people may not,” said Helen, “so we’ll appreciate all of the boosting you do.”

“I’ll do plenty,” he chuckled as he picked up an armful of papers and returned to the postoffice.

Margaret Stevens bustled in after school in time to help carry the last of the papers to the postoffice and she insisted on sweeping out the editorial office.

“You’re just ‘white’ tired,” she scolded Helen. “Sit down and I’ll swing this broom a few times.”

“I am a little tired,” admitted Helen. “How about you, Tom?”

“Me for bed just as soon as I get home and have something to eat,” agreed her brother. “Guess we were all worked up and nervous over our first issue.”

“You were a real help, Margaret,” said Helen, “and I hope you’ll like reporting well enough to stick with us.”

“I’m crazy about it,” replied Margaret, wielding the broom with new vigor.

Conversation among the sophomores the next morning at school was devoted solely to the class picnic in the afternoon. The refreshment committee had been busy and each member of the class was to furnish one thing. Helen was to bring pickles and Margaret’s mother was baking a large chocolate cake.

The class was dismissed at noon for the rest of the day, to meet again at one o’clock at Jim Preston’s boat landing for the trip down the lake to the picnic grounds on Linder’s farm.

There were 18 in the sophomore class and it was necessary for the boatman to make two trips with the Liberty to transport them to the picnic grounds. Helen and Margaret were in the first boat load and were the first ones out on the sandy beach at Linder’s. The rambling old farmhouse, famous for its home cooked chicken dinners, set back several hundred feet from the lake shore. To the left of the farm was a dense grove of maples. The picnic was to be along the shore just in front of the maples where there was ample shade to protect the group from the warm rays of the sun.

Miss Carver, the class advisor, rented two rowboats at Linder’s, and the class took turns enjoying cruises along the shore, hunting unusual rocks and shells for their collection at school.

The day previous Miss Carver and another teacher had come down the lake and made arrangements for a treasure hunt. The first clue was to be revealed at three o’clock and the class, divided into two groups, was to compete to see which group could find the hidden treasure. The first clue took them to the Linder farmyard, the second through the maples to an old sugarhouse, and the third brought them out of the timber and along a meadow where placid dairy cattle looked at them with wondering eyes. The fourth clue was found along the stream which cut through the meadow and Helen, leading one group, turned back toward the lake. A breeze was freshening out of the west and the sun dropped rapidly toward the shadows which were enfolding the hills.

The final clue took them back to their picnic ground and they arrived just ahead of Margaret and her followers to claim the prize, a two pound box of chocolates.

Miss Carver had laid out the baskets and hampers of food and the girls, helped by the boys in their clumsy way, started serving the supper.

One of the boys built a bonfire and with the coming of twilight and the cooling of the air its warmth felt good. The flames chased the shadows back toward the timber and sent dancing reflections out on the ruffled waters of Lake Dubar.

The afternoon in the open had whetted their appetites and they enjoyed their meal to the fullest. Thick, spicy sandwiches disappeared as if by magic, pickles followed in quick order and the mounds of potato salad melted away.

They stopped for a second wind before attacking the cakes and cookies but when those fortresses of food had been conquered the boys cut and sharpened sticks and the girls opened a large sack of marshmallows.

More wood was heaped on the fire and they gathered around the flames to toast the soft, white cubes.

With the wind whispering through the trees and the steady lap, lap, lap of the waves on the shore, it was the hour for stories and they settled back from the fire to listen to Miss Carver, whose reputation as a story teller was unexcelled.

“It was a night like this,” she started, “and a class something like this one was on a picnic. After supper they sat down at the fire to tell ghost stories, each one trying to outdo the other in the horror of the things they told.”

From somewhere through the night came a long drawn out cry rising from a soft note to a high crescendo that sent shivers running up and down the back of everyone at the fireside.

Helen laughed.

“It’s only the whistle of a freight train,” she assured the others, but they all moved closer to the fire.

“While they told stories,” went on Miss Carver, “the blackness of the night increased, the stars faded and over all there was a canopy of such darkness as had never been seen before. The wind moaned dismally like a lost soul and the waters of the lake, white-capped by the breeze, chattered against the rocky beach. The last ghost story was being told by one of the boys. He told how people disappeared as if by magic, leaving no trace behind them, uttering no sound. Some of the other stories had been surprising, but this one gave the class the creeps and everyone turned to see if the others were there.”

Involuntarily Helen reached out to clasp Margaret’s hand and when she failed to find it, turned to the spot where Margaret had been sitting beside her a few minutes before.

Margaret had disappeared!

CHAPTER IX
Rescue on Lake Dubar

Helen stared hard at the place where her friend should have been. Had the magic of Miss Carver’s story been so strong that she was imagining things? She rubbed her eyes and looked again. There was no mistake. Margaret had disappeared!

Helen’s cry caught the attention of the other members of the class and Miss Carver stopped her story.

“What’s the matter, Helen?” the teacher asked.

“Look,” cried Helen dazedly, pointing to the spot where Margaret had been sitting, “Margaret’s gone!”

Miss Carver’s eyes widened and she gave a little shudder. Then she smiled to reassure Helen and the other members of the class.

“Probably Margaret slipped away and is hiding just to add a thrill to my ghost story. I’ll call her.”

“Margaret, oh, Margaret!” The teacher’s voice rang through the night. She cupped her hands and called again when there was no response to her first one. Once more she called but still there was no answer from the massed maples behind them or the dark waters of the lake.

“This is more than a joke,” muttered Ned Burns, the class president. “We’d better get out and have a look around.”

He stepped toward the fire, threw on an armful of fresh, dry sticks, and the flames leaped higher, throwing their reflection further into the night.

“We’ll take a look into the woods,” he told Miss Carver, “and you and the girls hunt along the lake shore. Margaret might have fallen and hurt herself.”

Miss Carver agreed and the girls gathered around her. There was a queer tightness in Helen’s throat and a tugging at her heart that unnerved her – a vague, pressing fear that something was decidedly wrong with Margaret.

The boys disappeared into the shadows of the timber and the girls turned toward the lake shore.

They had just started their search when Miss Carver made an important discovery.

“Girls,” she cried, “One of the rowboats we rented this afternoon is missing!”

Helen ran toward the spot, the other girls crowding around her. They could make out the marks of the boat’s keel in the sand and a girl’s footprints.

“Those prints were made by Margaret’s shoes,” said Helen. “You can see the marks of the heel plates she has on her oxfords.”

“We’ll call the boys,” said Miss Carver, and Helen thought she detected a real note of alarm in the teacher’s voice although Miss Carver was making every possible effort to appear calm.

When the boys arrived, Miss Carver told them of their discovery and Ned Burns took charge of the situation.

“We’ll get in the other rowboat,” he said, “and start looking for Margaret. In the meantime, someone must go up to Linder’s farmhouse and telephone town. Margaret’s father ought to know she’s out on the lake in the boat. Also call Jim Preston and if he hasn’t started down with the Liberty, have him come at once.”

“I’ll go to the farm,” volunteered Helen.

“O. K.,” nodded Ned as he selected two other boys to accompany him in the rowboat. They pushed off the sandy beach, dropped the oars in the locks, and splashed away into the night.

“Don’t you want someone to go to the farmhouse with you?” Miss Carver asked Helen.

But Helen shook her head and ran up the beach. She didn’t want anyone with her; she wanted to be alone. The other girls didn’t realize the seriousness of the situation. She could understand what Margaret had done. Realizing that Miss Carver would tell them a first rate thriller of a ghost story, Margaret had decided to add an extra thrill by disappearing for a few minutes. But something had gone wrong and she hadn’t been able to get back.

Helen paused and looked over the black, mysterious waters of Lake Dubar. What secret were they keeping from her? Thoughts of what might have happened to Margaret brought the queer, choky sobs again and she ran on toward Linder’s where the welcome glow of light showed through the windows of the farmhouse.

Old Mr. Linder came to the door in answer to Helen’s quick, insistent knocks.

“What’s the matter, young Lady?” he asked, peering at her through the mellow radiance of the kerosene lamp which he held in one hand.

“I’m Helen Blair,” she explained, “and one of my classmates has disappeared from our picnic party down the beach. One of the boats we rented from you is missing and we’re sure Margaret is adrift on the lake and unable to get back. I’d like to use your telephone to let her father know and to call Jim Preston.”

“Why, certainly,” said Mr. Linder, “I don’t wonder at your hurry. Come right in and use the phone. Who did you say the girl was?”

“Margaret Stevens,” Helen replied.

“Must be Doctor Stevens’ daughter,” said the farmer.

“She is,” Helen replied, as she reached the telephone in the hallway.

While Helen was ringing for the operator at Rolfe, Mr. Linder stuck his head in the living room.

“Mother,” he said, “Doctor Stevens’ daughter is adrift somewhere on the lake in one of our boats. I’m going down and see if I can help find her.”

Mrs. Linder came into the hall and Helen heard her husband telling her what had happened. Then the Rolfe operator answered and Helen gave her the number of Doctor Stevens’ office.

The doctor answered almost instantly and Helen, phrasing her sentences as tactfully as possible so as not to unduly alarm the doctor, told him what had happened.

“Sounds just like Margaret,” he snorted. “I’ll be right down. Now don’t worry too much, Helen,” he added.

“I won’t, Doctor Stevens,” promised Helen with a shaky attempt at cheerfulness.

Then she called Jim Preston’s home and learned that he had left fifteen minutes before and should be almost down to Linder’s.

“We’ll go down to the landing and wait for Jim,” said Mr. Linder as he lighted a lantern he had brought from the kitchen.

“Everything will come out all right,” Mrs. Linder assured Helen.

The farmer led the way down to the landing. The wind was freshening rapidly and Helen saw Mr. Linder anxiously watching the white caps which were pounding against the sandy beach.

Down the beach their picnic campfire was a red glow and Helen could see Miss Hughes and the girls huddled around it. The boys who had not accompanied Ned Burns were walking up and down along the shore.

She turned and looked up the lake. Two lights, one red and one green, the markers of the Liberty, were coming down the lake.

“Jim Preston will be here in another minute,” said Mr. Linder, “and with the searchlight he’s got on the Liberty it won’t take us long to find Doctor Stevens’ daughter.”

Helen nodded miserably as the Liberty slowed down and swung its nose toward the Linder pier. There was the grinding of the reverse gear as Jim Preston checked the speed of his boat and left it drift against the pier.

“Don’t shut it off, Jim,” cried the farmer. “Doc Stevens’ daughter is adrift in the lake in one of my rowboats. We’ve got to go out and look for her.”

They climbed into the boat and Jim Preston backed the Liberty away from the pier.

“How did it happen?” he asked Helen. She told him briefly and he shook his head, as though to say, “too bad, it’s getting to be a nasty night on the lake.”

The boatman opened the throttle, the motor roared its response and the Liberty leaped ahead and down the lake. They ran parallel to the shore until they were opposite the picnic ground. There Jim Preston slowed down, got the direction of the wind, and turned the nose of the Liberty toward the open and now wind-tossed lake. He snapped on the switch and a crackling, blue beam of light cut a path ahead of the boat.

“Keep the searchlight moving,” he directed the farmer, who stood up in the Liberty, his hands on the handles of the big, nickel lamp.

The boatman held the Liberty at about one third speed and they moved almost directly across the lake while Mr. Linder kept the searchlight swinging in an arc to cover the largest possible area.

A third of the way across they sighted a boat far to their right and Jim Preston swung the nose of the Liberty around sharply and opened the throttle. They sliced through the white caps at a pace that drenched them with the flying spray but they were too intent on reaching the distant boat to stop and put up the spray boards.

Helen’s keen eyes were the first to identify the boat.

“It’s the boys,” she cried. “They’re beckoning us on.”

Jim Preston checked the Liberty carefully and nosed alongside the tossing rowboat.

“No sign of Margaret,” admitted Ned Burns, “and the lake’s getting too rough for us to stay out much longer. We’ve had half a dozen waves break over us now.”

“Better get in with us,” advised Preston.

“Hand me the oars,” said Mr. Linder, “and we’ll let the rowboat drift. I’ll pick it up in the morning.”

The boys tossed their oars into the Liberty and scrambled up into the motorboat.

Jim Preston threw in the clutch and the Liberty leaped ahead to resume its search for Margaret. Helen’s lips were dry and fevered despite the steady showers of spray and her heart hammered madly. Lake Dubar had always had a nasty reputation for ugliness in a fresh, sharp wind but Helen had never before realized its true danger and what a lost and helpless feeling one could have on it at night, especially when a friend was missing.

There was no conversation as the Liberty continued across the choppy expanse of the lake. The searchlight picked up the far shore of the lake with the waves hammering against the rocks which lined that particular section. It was a grim, unnerving picture and Helen saw Jim Preston’s jaw harden as he swung the Liberty around the cross back to Linder’s side of the lake.

Back and forth the searchlight swung in its steady, never tiring arc, but it revealed only the danger of Lake Dubar at night. There was no sign of Margaret.

They reached the shore from which they had started and turned around for a third trip across the lake. This time they slapped through the waves at twenty-five miles an hour and every eye was trained to watch for some sign of the missing boat and girl.

Helen caught a flash of white just as the searchlight reached the end of its arc.

“Wait!” she cried. “I saw something far to the right.”

Preston slapped the wheel of the Liberty over and the speedboat roared away in the direction Helen pointed, its questing searchlight combing the waves.

“There it is again,” Helen cried and pointed straight ahead where they could discern some object half hidden by the waves.

“That’s one of my boats,” muttered old Mr. Linder as they drew nearer, “but it doesn’t look like there was anyone in it.”

“Don’t, don’t say that!” cried Helen. “There must be someone there. Margaret must be in it!”

In her heart she knew Mr. Linder was right. The boat was rolling in the choppy waves and there was no one visible.

“It’s half full of water,” exclaimed Ned Burns as they drew nearer and Jim Preston throttled down the Liberty and eased in the clutch.

Helen pushed them aside and stared at the rowboat, fully revealed in the glaring rays of the searchlight. Tragedy was dancing on the waters of Lake Dubar that night, threatening to write an indelible chapter on the hearts of Helen and her classmates for there was no sign of Margaret in the boat.

“Maybe she shoved the boat out into the lake and hid in the woods,” said Ned Burns.

“She wouldn’t do that,” protested Helen.

They edged nearer the rowboat, Preston handling the Liberty with care lest the waves created by the boat’s powerful propeller capsize the smaller boat.

“There’s something or someone in the back end,” cried Ned Burns, who was three or four inches taller than anyone else in the boat.

Helen stood on tip-toe.

“It’s Margaret,” she cried. “Something’s wrong. It looks like she’s asleep.”

But sleep in a water-logged rowboat in the middle of Lake Dubar was out of the question and Helen realized instantly that something unusual had happened to Margaret, something which would explain the whole joke which had turned out to be such a ghastly nightmare.

Jim Preston eased the Liberty alongside the rowboat and Mr. Linder reached down and picked Margaret up. There was a dark bruise over her left eye and her clothes were soaked.

The boatman found an old blanket in one of the lockers and they wrapped Margaret in it and pillowed her head in Helen’s lap.

Margaret’s eyes were closed tightly but she was breathing slowly and her pulse was irregular.

“Hurry,” Helen whispered to Jim Preston. “Head for Linder’s. Her father will be there by this time.”

The boatman sensed the alarm in Helen’s words and he jerked open the throttle of the Liberty and sent the boat racing through the night. In less than five minutes they were slowing down for the pier. The lights of a car were at the shore end of the landing and someone with an electric torch was awaiting their arrival. It was Doctor Stevens, pacing along the planks of the landing stage.

“Have you found Margaret?” he cried as the Liberty sidled up to the pier.

“Got her right here,” replied Jim Preston, “but she’s got a bad bump on her head.”

Doctor Stevens jumped into the boat and turned his flashlight on Margaret’s face. Helen saw his lips tighten into a thin straight line. He felt her pulse.

“Run ahead,” he told Ned Burns, “and tell Mother Linder to open one of those spare beds of hers and get me plenty of hot water.”

He stooped and picked Margaret up in his arms, carrying her like a baby. Mr. Linder hurried ahead to light the way.

Helen stopped to talk with Jim Preston for a moment.

“I think you’d better take the class home,” she said. “There’s nothing more they can do here.”

“Will you go back with them now?” asked the boatman.

“No, I’m going to stay here tonight. I’ll phone mother.”

Helen turned and ran toward the farmhouse. Inside there was an air of quiet, suppressed activity.

Doctor Stevens had carried Margaret into the large downstairs bedroom which Mother Linder reserved for company occasions. Two kerosene lamps on a table beside the bed gave a rich light which softened the pallor of Margaret’s cheeks.

Doctor Stevens was busy with an injection from a hypodermic needle, working as though against time. Tragedy had danced on the tips of the waves a few minutes earlier but how close it came to entering the farmhouse only Doctor Stevens knew at that hour for Margaret’s strength, sapped by the terrifying experience on the lake, was near the breaking point and only the injection of a strong heart stimulant saved her life.

Two hours later, hours which had been ages long to Helen as she sat beside the bed with the doctor, Margaret opened her eyes.

“Don’t talk, Marg,” begged Helen. “Everything is all right. You’re in a bedroom at the Linders and your father is here with you.”

Margaret nodded slightly and closed her eyes. It was another hour before she moved again and when she did Mother Linder was at hand with a steaming bowl of chicken broth. The nourishing food plus the hour of calm sleep had partially restored Margaret’s strength and when she had finished the broth she sat up in bed.

“I’ve been such a little fool,” she said, but her father patted her hand.

“Don’t apologize for what’s happened,” he said. “We’re just supremely happy to have you here,” his voice so low that only Margaret and Helen heard him.

“I thought it would be a good joke to disappear when Miss Carver started telling the ghost story,” explained Margaret. “I got the boat out into the lake without anyone seeing me and let it drift several hundred feet. When I tried to put the oars in the locks I stumbled, dropped them overboard and that’s the last I knew, except that for hours I was falling, falling, falling, and always there was the noise of the waves.”

Margaret slipped back into a deep, restful sleep when she had finished her story. Helen, worn by the hours of tension, slid out of her chair and onto the floor, and when Doctor Stevens picked her up she was sound asleep.