CHAPTER XXI.“SH!”
“Who in the world do you suppose did that?” Hazel Edwards exclaimed, as she hastily examined her own clothes and then quickly struck out a spark that clung to the skirt of Azalia Atwood.
“Quick, girls,” cried Miss Ladd; “did any of you do that?”
There was a chorus of indignant denials. No room for doubt remained now that the missile had been hurled by someone outside the semicircle near the bonfire.
All eyes were turned back toward the timber a short distance away, but not a sign of a human being could they see in that direction.
“If we’d been on the other side of the bonfire, we’d have got that shower of sparks right in our faces and all over us,” Katherine Crane said indignantly.
“We ought to find out who threw that rock, or whatever it was,” Ethel Zimerman declared. “It must be a very dangerous person, who ought to be taken care of.”
“If that sort of thing is repeated many times, some of us probably will have to be taken care of,” observed Julietta Hyde.
“Listen!” Miss Ladd interrupted, and the occasion of her interruption did not call for explanation. All heard it. A moment later it was repeated.
“Wohelo!”
“No Camp Fire Girl ever made such a noise as that,” said Helen Nash disdainfully.
“It sounds like a man’s voice,” Azalia Atwood remarked.
“I’ll bet a Liberty Bond that it is a man,” ventured Ruth Hazelton.
“Have you a Liberty Bond?” asked Helen.
“I’m paying for one out of my allowance,” Ruth replied.
Just then the “noise” was repeated, a hoarse hollow vocalization of the Camp Fire Watchword. This time it seemed to be farther away.
“The person who gave that call threw the missile into our bonfire,” said Miss Ladd in a tone of conviction. “If he bothers us any more we’ll find out who he is.”
The girls now turned their attention again to the fire. Several pails of water were carried from the lake and dashed into the embers until not a spark remained. Then they returned to their tents and to bed, although apprehensive of further disturbance before morning.
But they heard nothing more of the intruder that night.
Shortly after sunup, the girls arose, put on their bathing suits, and went down to the beach for a before-breakfast plunge. Marie Crismore and Violet Munday reached the water’s edge first, and presently they were giving utterance to such unusual expressions, indicative seemingly of anything but pleasurethat the other girls hastened down to see what was the matter.
There was no need of explanation. The evidence was before them. The stakes that had been driven into the bed of the lake to hold the rope intended to indicate the safety limit had been pulled out and thrown upon the shore. The rope itself had disappeared.
“There surely are some malicious mischief makers in this vicinity,” Helen Nash observed. “I suppose the person who did that was the one who threw a stone into our bonfire and hooted our watchword so hideously.”
“What shall we do?” Violet Munday questioned. “We can’t let this sort of thing go on indefinitely.”
“We must complain to the authorities,” Ernestine Johanson suggested.
“Do you suppose they would do anything?” Estelle Adler asked. “I understand it’s very hard to get these country officials busy on anything except a murder or a robbery.”
“Then we must organize a series of relief watches and take the law into our own hands,” Katherine proposed.
“Spoken like a true soldier,” commented Miss Ladd approvingly. “I was going to suggest something of the same sort, although not quite so much like anarchy.”
“Where do you suppose they hid that rope?” Marion Stanlock inquired.
“Somebody probably needed a clothesline.”
“Here come some people who may be ableto throw some light on the situation,” said Marion.
All looked up and saw two girls apparently in their “upper teens,” dressed more suitably for an afternoon tea than a rustic outing. The latter were descending the wooded hill-shore, and had just emerged from a thick arboreal growth into a comparatively clear area a hundred yards away.
“Sh!” Katherine warned quickly. “Be careful what you say or do. Those are the Graham girls.”
CHAPTER XXII.THE GRAHAM GIRLS CALL.
“They’re early risers; we must say that much for them,” observed Katherine in a low voice. “We must give them credit for not lying in bed until 10 o’clock and, and——”
“And for dressing for an afternoon party before breakfast,” Helen Nash concluded.
“Isn’t it funny!” Hazel Edwards said with a suppressed titter. “I wonder if they are going in bathing.”
“Keep still, girls,” Miss Ladd interposed. “They’re getting pretty near. Let’s not pay too much attention to them. Let them seek our acquaintance, not we theirs. The advantage will be on our side then.”
At this suggestion of the Guardian, the girls turned their attention again to the conditions about their bathing beach. A moment later Katherine made a discovery that centered all interest in unaffected earnest upon the latest depredation of their enemy, or enemies. With a stick she fished out one end of a small rope and was soon hauling away at what appeared to be the “clothes line” they had used to indicate the safety limits of their bathing place.
“Well, conditions are not as bad as they might be,” said Miss Ladd, as she took hold to assist at hauling the line out of the water.“We have the stakes and the rope and can put them back into place.”
“Would you mind telling us what has happened?”
These words drew the attention of the Camp Fire Girls away from the object discovered in the water and to the speaker, who was one of the older of the urbanely clad summer resorters from the Graham cottage.
“Someone has been guilty of some very malicious mischief,” Miss Ladd replied. “We had roped in a bathing place after examining it and finding it safe for those who are not good swimmers, and you see what has been done with our work. The stakes were pulled up and the rope hidden in the water. Fortunately we have just discovered the rope.”
“Isn’t that mean!” said the younger girl, whom the campers surmised correctly to be Olga Graham.
“Mean is no name for it,” the other Graham girl declared vengefully. “Haven’t you any idea who did it?”
“None that is very tangible,” Miss Ladd replied. “There was a mysterious prowler near our camp last evening, but we didn’t catch sight of him. He threw a heavy stone into our bonfire and knocked the sparks and embers in every direction, but he kept himself hidden. A little later we heard a hideous call in the timbers, which we were pretty sure was intended to frighten us.”
“That’s strange,” commented the older of the visitors.
“Maybe it’s the ghost,” suggested Olga with a faint smile.
“Ghost!” repeated several of the Camp Fire Girls in unison.
“I was just joking,” the younger Graham girl explained hurriedly.
“Why did you suggest a ghost even as a joke?” inquired Katherine. The utterance of the word ghost, together with the probability that there was a neighborhood story behind it, forced upon her imagination an irrational explanation of the strange occurrences of the last evening.
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Olga reassured, but her words seemed to come with a slightly forced unnaturalness. “But there has been some talk about a ghost around here, you know.”
“Did anybody ever see it?” asked Hazel Edwards.
“Not that I know of,” avowed Olga. “Of course, I don’t believe in such things, but, then, you never can tell. It might be a half-witted person, and I’m sure I don’t know which I’d rather meet after dark—a ghost or a crazy man.”
“Is there a crazy man running loose around here?” Ernestine Johanson inquired with a shudder.
“There must be,” Olga declared with a suggestion of awe in her voice. “If it isn’t a ghost—and Idon’t believe in such things—it must be somebody escaped from a lunatic asylum.”
“I saw something mysterious moving through the woods near our cottage one night,” Addie Graham interposed at this point. “Nobody else in the family would believe me when I told them about it. It looked like a man in a long white robe and long hair and a long white beard. It was moonlight and I was looking out of my bedroom window. Suddenly this strange being appeared near the edge of the timber. He was looking toward the house, and I suppose he saw me, for he picked up a stone and threw it at the window where I stood. It fell a few feet short of its mark, and then the ghost or the insane man—call him what you please—turned and ran away.”
“My sister told us about that next morning, and we all laughed at her,” said Olga, continuing the account. “I told her to go out and find the stone, and she went out and picked one up just about where she said the stone that was thrown at her fell.”
“Were there any other stones near there?” Marion Stanlock inquired.
“We looked around specially to find out if there were any others near, but didn’t find any,” Olga answered. “Addie—that’s my sister—had the laugh on us all after that.”
“Do you live in the cottage over there?” Ethel Zimmerman inquired, pointing toward Graham summer residence.
“Yes,” Addie replied. “Our name is Graham.We were very much interested when we learned that a company of Camp Fire Girls were camping near us.”
“Don’t you girls camp out any?” Katherine asked with the view of possibly bringing out an explanation of the Graham girls’ attire, which seemed suited more for promenading along a metropolitan boulevard than for any other purpose.
“Oh, dear no,” Olga answered somewhat deprecatingly. “We’d like to well enough, you know, but we’re in society so much that we just don’t have time.”
Katherine wanted to ask the Graham girls if they were going to a stylish reception before breakfast, but restrained the impulse.
Both Katherine and Hazel recognized Addie as the girl whom, on their first trip to Stony Point, they had seen handle roughly the little boy they believed to be Glen Irving, the grandnephew of Mrs. Hutchins’ late husband in whose interests they made the present trip of inspection. Whether or not she recognized among the campers the two girls to whom she had behaved so rudely on that occasion did not appear from her manner, which was all sweetness now. She continued her social discourse thus:
“I really wish society did not demand so much of our time, and I’m sure my sister feels the same way about it. There’s nothing we’d like better than to become Camp Fire Girls and live close to nature, you know, just theway you girls live. Truly it must be delightful. But when you become an integral figure in society (she really said integral), you are regarded as indispensable, and society won’t let go of you.”
None of the Camp Fire Girls attempted to reply to this speech. Their plan was to bring about an appearance of friendship between them and the Grahams in order that they might associate with the family that had custody of the little boy in whose interests they were working. Any attempt on their part, they felt, to discuss “society” from the point of view of the Graham girls must result in a betrayal of their utter lack of sympathy with this “social indispensability” of such helpless society victims.
“We’d like, however, to do something for you in your unfortunate situation,” Addie Graham continued with a gush of seeming friendliness. “I’m sure my brother James—he’s 16 years old—would be glad to assist you in any way he can. I’m going to send him down here, if you say the word, to help you extend that rope around your swimming place. He’s a very handy boy, and it would be much better for you to let him do the work than to perform such a laborious task yourselves.”
“Thank you ever so much,” returned Miss Ladd with a warmth that seemed to indicate acceptance of the offer. The truth was that anything which tended to increase friendlyrelations between them and the Grahams was acceptable.
“I’ll send him around today,” the older Graham girl promised. “We must hurry back now for breakfast. We were just out for an early morning constitutional, you know.”
“Come and see us any time you wish,” Miss Ladd urged. “You’ll always be welcome. We haven’t made the acquaintance of anybody around here yet. Come over and help us eat one of our constitutional luncheons, or suppers. We have real picnics every day, the jolliest kind of times—except when the ghost walks. Maybe you can help us catch the ghost, also.”
“Maybe we can,” said Addie. “Well, good-by. You girls come and see us, too.”
“Thank you,” was the acknowledgment uttered by several of the members of Flamingo Camp Fire as the two Misses Graham stepped primly in their French-heel shoes over the uneven ground and returned homeward along a diagonal course up the side of the hill-shore of Twin One.
CHAPTER XXIII.“HIGH C.”
All the members of Flamingo Camp Fire gathered close together on the sandy beach after the departure of the two Graham girls and held a low-toned discussion of the situation.
“There was only one thing missing this morning,” Hazel Edwards observed. “That was the perfume. I suppose they didn’t have time to spill it on in proper proportions.”
“I wonder why they came down here at this time of day?” said Harriet Newcomb. “There must be something in the air.”
“I bet they never got up this early before unless their house was afire,” Ethel Zimmerman ventured.
“Do you suppose they wanted to be on hand to witness our discomfiture when we discovered what had been done to our swimming place?” Azalia Atwood asked.
“That would imply that they knew who did it and may even have been a party to the plot,” Miss Ladd reasoned.
“And why not?” Azalia returned. “They don’t look to me, for a moment, to be above it.”
“I feel like a miserable hypocrite,” Katherine declared with a sarcastic smile. “I’m not used to extending warm expressions of friendshipto people for whom I haven’t any use and asking them to call and see me.”
“Remember you’re a spy now,” said Helen Nash slyly. “When engaged in a praiseworthy spy work, always remember your mother and the pantry and the fist in the jam, if you have any doubt as to the worthiness of your occupation.”
“Enough said,” Katherine announced, “I’m convinced. The jam is well spiced and I smell it already. I shall expect to find it on somebody’s fist.”
The girls did not forego their morning plunge because of the removal of the “safety line,” but were careful to keep well within the approximate limit which they remembered fairly well. After about fifteen minutes in the water they returned to the camp and donned their khaki middies; then they had breakfast.
The breakfast dishes had not long been washed and put away when another caller arrived at the camp. Although not unheralded, the appearance of this new arrival was a surprise to all the girls, for they had not rested much importance upon the promise of Addie Graham to send her brother to them to offer his assistance in repairing the damage done by some mischief-maker in the night before.
The young male scion of the Graham family appeared so suddenly before the eyes of the girl campers that some of them afterward expressed the suspicion that he walked timidly on his tiptoes all the way from his home to thecamp. Indeed all the members of Flamingo Fire have today a decided impression that the sound of his voice was the first notice they had of his approach.
Whether this impression be a true one or not, that voice was enough to compel memory of it ahead of anything else. It was the most effeminately high-pitched voice the girls had ever heard.
“Excuse me, young ladies, but my name is James Graham, Jr.,” squeaked the treble clef.
There was a general start throughout the camp. Most of the girls were seated upon the grassy plot within the crescent arrangement of the tents and engaged in their forenoon routine, and several of them actually dropped their craft work into their laps so great was their surprise. Ethel Zimmerman uttered a little cry of astonishment in almost the same key as the announcement of the newcomer.
The latter was almost as effeminate in appearance as in voice. First, he was very much overgrown and fleshy. He probably weighed 150 pounds. His face was round and very pale, and his eyes were not over-endowed with expression. He wore a “peaches-and-cream” two-piece suit and a panama fedora and carried a delicate bamboo cane.
“My two thoughtful sisters info’med me that you young ladies were in need of the assistance of a man, and I volunteered to offer my aid,” continued young Master Graham.
“Oh dear me,” replied Katherine; “it wouldbe a shame to put you to so much trouble. We thank you ever so much for your offer, but we’d much rather retain the friendship of your folks by urging you not to insist. If you really must be so good as you suggest, you might go back and send your hostler or chauffeur, but tell him to bring a pair of rubber boots that reach to his ears.”
This rather enigmatical answer puzzled the not very quick-witted James, Jr., and his chin dropped.
“You see, we want a pile-driver out in the lake to sink some posts into the submarine earth,” Katherine continued. “But, by the way, come to think of it, you might help us wonderfully if you have a rowboat and would lend it to us for an hour or two.”
“Sure I’ve got a boat,” replied the “would-(not)-be ladies’ aid,” as one of the girls afterward dubbed him. The tone of relief with which he now spoke was unmistakable. “I’ll go and row it right over to you.”
“We won’t want it until about 11 o’clock,” said Miss Ladd. “If you need it between now and then you’d better wait.”
“Oh we won’t want it all day,” James, Jr., returned reassuringly. “I’ll bring it right away.”
“I hope he doesn’t tip his boat over on his ‘high C’,” Hazel Edwards said generously, as the caller disappeared in the timber. “He might be drowned in the billows of his own voice.”
“That’s his name—High C,” declared Estelle Adler enthusiastically. “I refuse to recognize him by any other name. Dear me, girls, did you ever in all your born days hear such a voice?”
“No,” cried several in chorus.
“He’s just the dearest thing I ever saw,” declared Ernestine Johanson, making a face as sour as the reputation of a crabapple.
At this moment the discussion of “High C” was dropped as suddenly as “it” had appeared upon the scene. Another arrival claimed the interest of the girls.
It was a little boy about ten years old, clad in steel-gray Palm Beach knickerbockers and golf cap, but not at all happy in appearance. He was a good looking youth, but there was no sprightly cheerfulness in his countenance. He seemed nervous and on the alert.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Hazel Edwards; “that’s Glen Irving, the little boy we——”
Katherine, who was seated close to Hazel, cut the latter’s utterance short by clapping her hand over the speaker’s mouth.
CHAPTER XXIV.THE RUNAWAY.
The boy was excited. Evidently he was laboring under anything but normal conditions. He had appeared very suddenly around the north end of the bluff which sheltered the camp on the east. “High C” or “Jimmie Junior,” as the girls from now on referred to young Graham, had left the camp around the south extremity of the bluff.
The youth in Palm Beach knickerbockers fairly rushed from the thicket north of the camp and directly toward the girls, all of whom jumped to their feet in astonishment. The newcomer did not slacken his pace, but ran up to the group of startled campers as if seeking their protection from a “Bogy Man.” And as he stopped in the midst of the group which circled around him almost as excited as he, the little fellow looked back as if expecting to behold some frightful looking object bearing down upon him.
“I ran away,” were his first words; “so—so they couldn’t beat me.”
“Who wanted to beat you?” inquired Miss Ladd sympathetically, leaning over and taking him gently by the hand.
“Mom—an’ Ad.—an’ Olg.—an’ Jim—they all hit me,” he replied, his eyes flashing with anger. “Mom locked me in a room, but Iopened a window an’ clum out.”
“Did they beat you today?” Hazel Edwards questioned.
“No,” replied the youth with a puzzled look; “they don’t want you to know they whipped me. They stopped it after you came and after a man came and told ’em not to.”
“Who is the man?” Hazel asked.
“I don’t know. I heard his name, but I forgot.”
“Was it Langford?”
“Yes, that’s it—Langford. He told ’em all to be good as pie to me while you was here. They thought I was asleep, but I was just pretendin’.”
“Did Mr. Langford say why they must be good to you while we were here?” asked Katherine.
“I guess he did,” the boy replied slowly. “He said somebody’d take me away and Mom ’u’d lose a lot o’ money.”
“That’s just what we thought,” Hazel declared.
“What else did you overhear?” Katherine inquired.
“They’re goin’ to be awful nice and awful mean.”
“Awful nice and awful mean,” Katherine repeated. “That’s interesting. What do you mean by that?”
“They’re goin’ to be awful nice to your face, but mean on the sly.”
“Have they done anything mean yet?” MissLadd interposed, having in mind the depredations of the night before.
“I don’t know,” the boy answered. “They were talkin’ about doing somethin’ last night, and the man and Jim went out together.”
“You don’t know what they proposed to do?”
“No—just somethin’, anything they could.”
“What is your name, little boy?” Hazel asked.
“Glen” was the answer.
“Glen what?”
“Glen Graham.”
“Isn’t it Glen Irving?”
The boy looked doubtfully at his interrogator.
“I don’t know,” he replied slowly. “I guess not.”
“Didn’t you ever hear the name Irving before?”
The boy’s face brightened up suddenly.
“That was my papa’s name,” he said eagerly.
“Now, I want to ask you an important question,” said Miss Ladd impressively. “Try your best to tell us all you can, and don’t tell any of the Grahams you were down here talking to us. We won’t forget you. If they beat you any more come, and tell us if you can get away. We’ll have the police after them. But be sure to keep this to yourself. Now, here’s the question I want you to answer: Did anybodyoutside of the Graham family ever see them beat you?”
“Sure,” Glen replied quickly. “Byron Scott did. So did Mrs. Pruitt and Guy Davis and Mark Taylor.”
“Where do they live?” was Miss Ladd’s next question.
“Byron lives here, so does Mrs. Pruitt. Guy and Mark live in Baltimore.”
“Do they live near the Graham’s home in Baltimore?”
“Yes, right in the same block. Mark lives next door.”
“Good. Now, Glen, we are going to take you back to Mrs. Graham. We haven’t any right to keep you here, but if they beat you any more, we will complain to the police and take you away never to come back to them.”
“Oh, I wish you would,” exclaimed the little fellow, throwing his arms around the neck of the Guardian who had seated herself on the grass before him. “I don’t want them to scare you with a ghost.”
“Scare us with a ghost!” Miss Ladd repeated in astonishment. “What do you mean by that?”
“They said——” the boy began, but his explanation was interrupted in a manner so confusing that the group of Camp Fire Girls might easily have wondered if the world were suddenly assuming all the absurdities of a clownish paradise in order to be consistent with what was now taking place.
Addie Graham, the girl of ultra-style and perfume who had behaved so rudely to little Glen when she discovered the runaway with Katherine and Hazel in the woods, suddenly dashed into the deeply interested group of Camp Fire inquisitors, seized the boy in her arms, kissed him with apparent passionate fondness, and addressed him with a gush of endearment that must have brought tears to the eyes of an unsophisticated listener.
CHAPTER XXV.A LITTLE SCRAPPER.
“Oh, you dear little brother, you dear darling child,” almost sobbed Addie as she seized Glen Irving in her arms and began to shower kisses on his unwilling face.
The boy shrunk away, or into as small a compass as he was able, to escape from the “affectionate attack.” Plainly it was anything but pleasing to him.
The “attack,” however, did not cease in response to his protest. Addie held onto her captive with all her strength, at the same time attempting to soothe his wrath or fear, or both, with as many kisses as she could force in between the boy’s belligerent arms. Glen, conscious of the presence of friends who, he believed, would go to any extreme to assist him, fought as he had never fought before, desperately, viciously. He used his fists and fingernails to good purpose and pulled Addie’s hair until it presented a ludicrous appearance of disarrangement.
Realizing that the boy’s actions might prove harmful to his cause if this affair should ever be contested in the courts, Miss Ladd decided to take a hand and do what she could to pacify the young heir who had suddenly been transformed into a veritable wildcat. Shehad no doubt that there was good cause in his past experience for the development of such character in him, but expediency demanded that it be checked at once.
“Here, let me take him,” Miss Ladd urged as she laid her hands on his shoulders and attempted to draw him away. A few gentle words and an exhibition of a kind persuasiveness of manner brought success. She drew the lad back some distance and tried to reason with him, whereupon he burst into convulsive sobbing.
His sobs were not a new expression of an outburst of passion. Miss Ladd was certain of this. Little Glen was weeping not because anger “opened the floodgates of his soul,” but because of some picture of dread in his past experience which he feared would be repeated in the future.
But Addie Graham was not equal to the occasion. The veneer of gentleness that she had put on could not withstand the deep-seated spitefulness of her nature, and as she observed a severe scratch on one hand and felt the disarrangement of her hair, she yielded impulsively to vengefulness of spirit that was boiling within her and exclaimed:
“The miserable little pest! Just wait till I get you home, Glen Graham, and I’ll——”
She stopped right there, much to the disappointment of the eagerly listening Camp Fire Girls, who fully expected her to open an avenueto the very evidence for which they were looking.
“Why!” she continued, with a desperate effort to control her temper. “I never knew him to act that way before. He’s usually such a—such a—sweet dispositioned little dear. I don’t know what to make of it. He took me completely by surprise. I don’t understand it—I don’t know what to make of it—I can’t understand the little—the little—d-dear.”
“It is strange, very strange,” Miss Ladd agreed, purposing, for policy’s sake, to help the girl out of her predicament.
“Come to sister, Glennie dear,” Addie continued, after she had succeeded in rearranging her hair and restoring her hat to its normal position on her head. “Don’t you know sister loves you just lots? Why did you run away? Come back home and sister will give you some candy, just lots of it. Come on, now, that’s a good little boy.”
“I don’t want your candy and you ain’t my sister, and I won’t go back. You’ll beat me, and mom’ll beat me and everybody else’ll beat me. Don’t let her take me back, please don’t,” Glen concluded, turning his face pleadingly toward Miss Ladd.
“Oh, you must go back, Glen,” the Guardian replied, reproachfully. “That’s your home, don’t you know? Where in the world will you go if you don’t go back home? Think of it—noplace in the world to go, no place in the world.”
There was a tone of awe in the young woman’s voice that impressed the boy. He cooled down considerably and looked meditatively at his monitor.
“They’ll beat me,” he protested earnestly. “They’ll tie me to a bed post and strap me.”
“Why, how perfectly terrible!” Addie exclaimed. “I never heard of such a thing. I can’t understand such remarks.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Katherine suggested reassuringly. “We’ll all go back to the house with you and fix everything up nice. They won’t beat you, I’m sure. Come on, Miss Graham, we’ll help you, if you don’t think we’re intruding.”
Addie did not know how to reply and did not attempt to. She started toward home and the Camp Fire Girls followed her, Miss Ladd leading the battling runaway by the hand.
Glen was considerably bewildered and apparently submissive during the journey homeward. He said little, and when he spoke, it was only a short reply to something said to him.
At the door of the cottage, they were met by Mrs. Graham, to whom Addie introduced them. None of the girls were well impressed by the woman’s appearance or manner. She affected the same ungenuine interest and affection for Glen that had characterized Addie’smanner toward him. But they managed to bring about a condition more or less reassuring to the boy and left him, with secret misgivings, in the custody of the family which they held more than ever under suspicion.
“We’ve got to do some real spy work now,” said Miss Ladd after they had reached their camp again. “We’ve got to find out what is going on in that house when those people have no suspicion that they are being watched.”
CHAPTER XXVI.AMMUNITION AND CATAPULTS.
The thirteen Camp Fire Girls and their Guardian are hardly to be censured because they did little more work of a routine nature that day. One could hardly expect them to fix their minds upon any “even tenor” occupation while the thrills of recent developments supplied so much stimulus for discussion of future prospect.
They were careful in these discussions not to leave open any possibility of their being overheard. Their conversations were always held in low tones and in places where it would be difficult for any of the members of the Graham family to find positions of concealment near enough to overhear what was being said.
One thing decided upon was in line with Miss Ladd’s declaration that they must find out “what was going on in the Graham house,” having reference, of course, to the treatment received there by little Glen in view of his violent protest against being returned to the care and custody of the people whom he charged with acts of cruelty toward himself. A scouting expedition was planned for the evening, the “official scouts” of the Fire—Katherine and Hazel—being delegated to this work. Katherine proposed that two others be selected to assist them, and Miss Ladd suggestedthat they choose their assistants themselves.
“We’ll think it over and pick them before suppertime,” said Katherine after conferring with Hazel.
The result was that before sundown Azalia Atwood and Ernestine Johanson had been added to the spy squad. Their selection came as a result of general discussions of the work in prospect, in the course of which both Azalia and Ernestine made several suggestions that were regarded as clever and helpful for the scouting plans.
Shortly after the girls returned from the Graham cottage to their camp, “Jimmie Junior” of the “treble cleff voice” appeared with the announcement that he had brought his boat to the Camp Fire landing and moored it by tying the painter to a projecting rock. They thanked him and proceeded at once with the task of restoring the safety-guard line to their bathing place. All put on their bathing suits and went down to the beach.
With the aid of the boat their work was much easier than it had been the first time. It is no easy performance for one person to sit on the shoulders of another and wield a mallet on the upper end of a stake held by a third person in water arm-pit deep. If you doubt this assertion, just try it.
Well, this difficult feat was unnecessary this time. The stakes, rope, and mallet were put into the boat, and three of the girls got inand rowed out to the point where the southwest stake had been driven before. Then two of them plunged overboard and, while one of these steadied the boat and the other held the stake in position, the girl in the boat drove it firmly into the sand-clay bed of the lake.
This operation was repeated until the supports of the buoy-line were all restored. Then the rope was stretched from stake to stake and wooden buoys attached as before.
The work was speedily performed and then the girls all had a good swim. When they returned to their camp, it was lunch time and the “gastronomic committee,” as Harriet, the “walking dictionary,” had dubbed the commissary department, got busy. During the meal, which they ate on a “newspaper tablecloth,” picnic-style, the subject of organized self-protection against further depredations was discussed.
“I believe we ought to establish a relief watch system to be kept up all night every night as long as there seems to be any danger of our being molested by prowlers like those who paid us a visit last night,” Estelle announced.
“What would we do if we caught anybody at any mischief?” asked Azalia.
“We’d sail right into ’em and give ’em Hail Columbia,” declared Hazel like a vigilance committee chairman.
“Yes, we’d pull their hair,” said Marie Crismore.
“And scratch their eyes out,” Ernestine chimed in.
“And boo-shoo ’em away,” added Julietta Hyde.
“I’m positively ashamed of you for talking that way,” Miss Ladd interposed. “You’re laughing at yourselves because you are girls. Now, you ought not to do that, even in fun. How many of you can do some real boys’ stunts just as well as the boys can?”
“I can swim half a mile,” announced Hazel.
“I can do a fly-away from the horizontal bar,” declared Violet Munday.
“I can run a hundred-yard dash in thirteen seconds,” said Ernestine; “and that’s better than lots of boys can do it.”
“I can throw a ball like a boy,” said Helen Nash.
“So can I”—this from Marion Stanlock.
“Oh, several of us can do that,” Katherine declared. “We’ve played ball with the boys. But now you’re getting close to what I was driving at. We’ll proceed to gather a supply of ammunition.”
“Ammunition!” several exclaimed.
“Surely,” Katherine replied. “We’ll get it down on the beach.”
“Oh, I get you,” said Estelle. “You mean——”
“Rocks,” cried Marie, getting the word in ahead of Estelle.
“That’s it,” Katherine admitted. “We’llshower rocks at anybody that makes us any more trouble.”
“Very ingenious,” Miss Ladd said approvingly. “If those persons who visited us last night come again, they’ll get a warm reception.”
“And a hard one,” Marion supplemented.
“I have another idea,” Helen announced, and everybody turned attention to her. “I have some heavy rubber bands in my grip. I always carry them because they come in very handy sometimes.”
“What can you do with them?” Estelle asked.
“What do you think?” Helen returned.
“I know,” cried Ethel Zimmerman. “Make catapults with them.”
“Good!” several of the girls exclaimed.
“The boys call them slingshots,” said the Guardian.
“How do you make a slingshot?” Julietta inquired.
“I know,” Marion announced. “You cut a forked stick, like the letter ‘Y.’ Then you tie two rubber bands to it, one to each fork. Between the other ends of the bands you tie a little sack, or shallow pocket, made of leather or strong cloth. You put a stone in this pocket and pull it back, stretching the rubber bands, take aim, and let it fly.”
“You must have had experience making those things,” Katherine suggested.
“No, I never made one,” Marion replied: “but I’vewatched my cousin make them and shoot them, too. He was very skillful at it.”
“Can you shoot a catapult?” Katherine inquired.
“I think I can,” Marion answered.
“Good,” said Katherine. “We’ll make several, and those who can’t throw stones can use slingshots.”
That was a very busy afternoon for this warlike group of girls. While the luncheon dishes were being washed and put away, Katherine and Hazel rowed the boat back to the Graham landing, thanked “Jimmie Junior” for its use, accepted with solemn countenances his “high-C” “You’re welcome,” and returned to their camp. Then the work of manufacturing arms and ammunition, in anticipation of another midnight invasion, began.