CHAPTER XXVIITHE GHOST.
Before the "preparedness program" of the afternoon was started, Miss Ladd addressed the group of Camp Fire Girls thus, speaking in low tone, of course, in order that she might not be overheard by any eavesdropper who might be in hiding in the vicinity:
"Now, we want to do this thing right. How many of you feel that you can throw a stone a considerable distance and accurately?"
Katherine, Helen, Marion and Violet held up their hands.
"How many of you would like to use catapults?" was the Guardian's next question.
The hands of Harriet, Marie, Ethel, and Ruth went up promptly. A moment later Estelle and Ernestine also put up theirs.
"I believe I could learn how," said Estelle.
"We don't want too much demonstration around here this afternoon," Miss Ladd warned. "Everything must proceed quietly and as if nothing unusual were taking place. How many rubber bands have you, Helen?"
"Oh, a dozen or twenty," the latter replied.
"Well, we'll proceed to cut half a dozen Y-forks and make them into catapults. We'll start out at once. Hazel, you get a hatchet, and, Marie, you get a saw; the rest of you get your combination knives."
In a few minutes they were in the thick of the timber, searching the small trees and saplings for Y-forks to serve as catapult handles. In half an hour they returned with a dozen of varying degree of symmetry and excellence.
Then the work of assembling the parts of these miniature engines of war began. Some of the girls exhibited a good deal of mechanical skill, while others made moves and suggestions so awkward as to occasion much laughter.
"Well, anyway," said Marie after she had been merrily criticised for sewing up the "mouth" of a "pocket" so narrowly that a stone could hardly fly out of it; "there are lots of boys who would make a worse job sewing on a button. Don't you remember last winter at a button-sewing contest, Paul Wetzler cast the thread over and over and over the side of the button-and he didn't know any better."
"That's a very convenient way to dodge a joke on you, Marie," said Violet. "But just because boys don't know anything is no reason why we shouldn't."
"Whew! some slam at me," Marie exclaimed. "I'm very properly squelched."
After half a dozen catapults had been made, the girls practiced slinging stones for an hour and several of them developed considerable skill. In this way it was determined who should have the preference in the use of these weapons.
Then at the suggestion of Miss Ladd, adozen slings were made to be tied about the waist for carrying a supply of stones, some the size of an egg, for throwing with the hand and pebbles for use in the catapults. After these were completed, the girls went down to the beach and gathered a plentiful supply and took them back to the camp. Then a score or two of these stones were deposited in the slings, and the latter were put in convenient places in the tents on short notice. The catapults also were turned over to those of the girls who proved most capable of using them skillfully.
The last item of preparations on the program of the day consisted of completing plans for a succession of night watch reliefs. As Katherine, Hazel, Azalia, and Ernestine were assigned to special scout duty immediately after dusk, they were excused from assignment on any of the reliefs. This left ten girls among whom the watches might be divided, which was done in the following manner:
The eight sleeping hours from 9 P.M. to 5 A.M. were divided into live watches of equal length and assignments were made thus:
First watch: Marion Stanlock and Helen Nash. Second watch: Ruth Hazelton and Ethel Zimmerman. Third watch: Violet Munday and Harriet Newcomb. Fourth watch: Julietta Hyde and Marie Crismore. Fifth watch: Estelle Adler and the Guardian, Miss Ladd.
Nothing further of particular interest tookplace during the rest of the day, except that shortly before suppertime Addie and Olga Graham, both dressed "fit to kill," called at the camp and thanked the girls for their assistance in getting "their brother" back home.
"Is he all right now?" Hazel inquired with genuine concern.
"Yes, he's fine," Addie replied. "You see he has spells of that kind every now and then, and we don't know what to make of it. But today's was the worst spell he ever had."
"Don't you do anything for him?" Hazel asked.
"What can we do?" Addie returned. "He isn't sick. I'm afraid it's just a little distemper. There is absolutely no reason for it."
Miss Ladd asked the Graham girls to remain at the camp for supper, but they "begged to be excused on account of a pressing social engagement."
After darkness had fallen as heavily as could be expected on a clear, though moonless night, the four scouts set out through the timber toward the Graham cottage. All of them carried flashlights and clubs which might easily have been mistaken in the dark for mere walking sticks. The clubs were for protection against dogs or any other living being which might exhibit hostility toward them. Katherine and Hazel had also two of the rubber-band catapults, as they had exhibited no little skill, for novices, in the use of them.
The other girls built a small fire near thetents, to keep the mosquitos away, and sat around it chatting and waited for the scouts to return. Miss Ladd insisted, as soon as dusk began to gather, that they bring out their "ammunition" from the tents and keep it close at hand for immediate use if anything should happen to require it.
And something did happen, something of quite unexpected and startling character. The scouts had been gone about half an hour and the night had settled down to a blanket of darkness on the earth, a sprinkle of starlight in the sky, the croaking of frogs, the songs of katydids and the occasional ripple of water on the lake shore. A poet might have breathed a sigh of delightful awe. Well, the girls were pleasureably impressed with scene and the sounds, if they were not exactly delighted, and the awe was coming.
It came without warning and was before them very suddenly. It was in the form of a man in a long, white robe, long white hair and whiskers, the latter reaching almost to his waist. He stalked, stiffly, unemotionally out of the darkness south of the camp and across the open space within thirty feet of the fire, where sat the startled, chill-thrilled group of girls, speechless with something akin to fear and momentarily powerless to shake off the spell that held them as rigid as statues.