CHAPTER XV
“IT’S THE BOYS”
“IT’S THE BOYS”
“IT’S THE BOYS”
“How much farther?”
“I can’t walk another step!”
“You must! You can’t stay here—none of us can! We must keep on!”
The Camp Fire Girls were trudging through the woods, whither the path led them—wet, miserable and unhappy, yet not utterly discouraged. The little pocket lamp of the Guardian was their salvation, in a way, for the brilliant pencil of fire that streamed out of the lens showed them the trail—such as it was.
They had hurried on from the rather inhospitable farmhouse of the German—inhospitable not so much from intention as misunderstanding.
“Oh, if we ever get to our dear, old camp again!” murmured Marie, as she clung to Natalie’s arm.
“We’ll never go Gypsy-hunting again; will we?” spoke Alice from the rear guard.
“Never! I wonder if the boys had any better luck?” asked Mabel.
“At any rate they don’t mind being lost, and getting wet,” said Marie.
“Oh, we’re not so wet,” voiced Natalie. “These khaki suits are just dandy for shedding rain. They’re like a duck’s back. Really, I’m not at all damp—except outside.”
“But don’t you think we might have stayed at that German place?” asked Mrs. Bonnell. “Really, the farther on we go the more I worry about you girls. Wherearewe going to come out?”
“Somewhere on the shores of Green Lake,” declared Mabel. “And if once we get there we can surely find some one to help us. There are cottages all around the lake, and it isn’t so late, though it is dark. We can give our camp cry, when we get a little nearer and some one will come out to see what’s the trouble.”
“When we get a little nearer what?” asked Alice.
“Green Lake,” replied Mabel. “If you’ll notice we’ve been going down hill for the last ten minutes. Green Lake lies lower than Bear Pond, and we must be getting down to the lake level. Sooner or later we’ll get to the shore, and then we won’t be lost.”
“Fine!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnell, as she clutched at the arm of Mabel to save herself from falling, having stepped on a stone that gave her ankle a turn. “You are certainly pursuing knowledge, Mabel—and that is one of our degrees. So you really noticed that?”
“Yes. Going to Bear Pond we kept climbing up—though of course there were times when we had to go down in little glades. Now we are going the other way, which shows that we are coming down. Of course we may come out miles from where we left our boats, but what matter—as long as we are at the lake?”
“The dear, old lake!” murmured Marie. “I shall besoglad to see it again.”
They trudged on in the rain and darkness. The drops were falling heavier now, for the drizzle had given place to a regulation downpour with all the accompaniments of wind and chilling atmosphere. Fortunately the Camp Fire Girls had on heavy garments, and their practical suits did really shed the water-drops as does the proverbial duck’s back.
The electric lamp served well to show them the path, Mrs. Bonnell walking on ahead and flashing the light at intervals, to keep herself from wandering off the hard and beaten surface that seemed well-traveled in spite of the lonesomeness of the surroundings.
“It can’t bemuchfarther!” murmured Natalie. “I’m sure I’ve walked ten miles since we had the last of the sandwiches!”
“Don’t you dare mention eating!” cried Alice.
“Are you tired?” asked Mrs. Bonnell, turning back toward Natalie.
“Not so very. But I do wish we were in camp. Do you suppose the boys——”
“No such good luck!” interrupted Mabel, guessing Natalie’s thought.
“But if they come over to our camp, as they do every evening,” went on breath-of-the-pine-tree, “they’ll see that we aren’t there, and they may start out——”
“Yes, but how would they know where to begin?” asked Marie. “We didn’t tell any one where we were going!”
“Unless Reuben did.”
“That’s so!”
Hope seemed to spring up anew.
“Oh, dear! oh!” suddenly called Alice.
“What is it?” demanded Mrs. Bonnell, turning and flashing her lamp.
“Don’t say it’s a snake!” begged Natalie.
“I don’t know what it was,” went on Alice. “But something sharp pricked me on the ankle—right through my shoe, too!”
Mrs. Bonnell hurried back along the halted line.
“Silly!” she cried. “Nothing but a piece of a blackberry bush that slipped down inside your shoe. Your lace is loosened.”
“Oh!” gasped Alice contritely. “I—I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Once more they trudged on in the rain and darkness. But to the eternal credit of the Camp Fire Girls be it said that no one murmured. They all recognized it as something that could not be helped or bettered by complaining, and they were Spartan-like in their sufferings, of which nerves played no small part.
“Let me carry the light for a while,” suggested Marie to the Guardian.
“All right, if you’d like to. Come up front,” invited Mrs. Bonnell, who realized the need of letting the girls do things for themselves.
“Oh—Oh! Oh, dear!” gasped Marie as she darted forward.
“What is it now?” some one asked.
“I stepped in a puddle—over my shoe! Oh, isn’t it wet!”
“Water generally is,” said Natalie dryly.
But Marie took the lead, and increased the pace, which Mrs. Bonnell had been thinking of doing, but from which she had refrained from suggesting as she thought the girls were tired. But they responded well to the quick-step that Marie led them.
“Hark! What’s that?” suddenly exclaimed Mabel, who was directly behind Marie.
“What’s what?”
“That noise. Didn’t you hear some one calling?”
They halted—hearts beating so hard that it seemed as if they might be heard by others than the owners.
From the blackness around them came a shout.
“Haloooooo!”
“An owl!” murmured Natalie.
“Maybe a bat,” ventured Alice.
“Oh, you horrid thing! Don’t mention bats!” begged Mabel.
Again came the long-drawn out cry:
“Hallo-o-o-o-o!”
The girls drew closer together, Mrs. Bonnell extending the lamp as some sort of weapon.
“That German,” murmured Alice.
“We’re miles away from his place,” whispered Marie.
From the woods in front of them came a crashing as of some heavy body breaking through the underbrush.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Natalie.
“Maybe,” began Alice, “maybe it’s——”
She was interrupted by another hail. Then came the challenge:
“Stony Point! Camp Fire Girls! Crystal Springs!”
“Wo-he-lo! Wo-he-lo!” shouted Natalie with all the strength of her splendid lungs.
“Wo-he-lo!” came in answer.
“It’s the boys!” screamed Alice. “Oh, it’s the boys! Now we are all right!”