SkillfullyBetty maneuvered the little boat down the narrow neck of water, carefully avoiding the overhanging branches of trees. She was looking for just the right place to land.
The next moment she found it—a spot just made for the purpose. There was a smooth stretch, entirely cleared of bushes and tree stumps with an out-jutting bank that made an ideal landing.
“Right you are!” exclaimed Mollie, as the Little Captain steered close to shore, bidding Amy “let up” on the oars. “Couldn’t have been better if we’d had it made to order.”
“And we beat the rain at that,” observed Grace.
“Your precious suit is saved,” said Mollie, sarcastically. “Of course that’s what you mean.”
But Grace was too glad to straighten her cramped legs and scramble on shore to take notice of the words or the tone in which they were uttered.
The other girls followed her example while Betty remained to cover theGemwith the tarpaulin.
“We’ll find the shack first,” she said as she followed the girls and paused to make sure that the boat was well fastened and could be trusted to remain where she was. “Then we’ll come back for the eatables.”
“Gladly,” agreed Grace, for she was again beginning to feel the first pangs of hunger.
“And now,” said Mollie, as arm and arm she and Betty led the way up the rather steep ascent, “here’s hoping we find the shack.”
“I guess there’s not much doubt of that,” said Betty, confidently. “All we’ll have to do now will be to take possession.”
And so, of course, they were bewildered when, upon reaching the cleared space at the top of the hill which Henry Blackford had described to them, they found no cabin.
They stopped and rubbed their eyes while Grace and Amy, bringing up the rear, stopped and stared also.
“Wh-where is it?” asked Grace, too astonished to know just what she was saying. “It must be here.”
“I’m glad you’re so sure of that,” snappedMollie. “Now perhaps, you’ll tell us where it is.”
“Don’t let’s quarrel,” cautioned the Little Captain, adding with a puzzled frown: “Perhaps we came up the wrong hill.”
“No,” said Amy, positively. “I’m quite sure from what Henry told me about it, that this is the place. See, there’s the huge gnarled old oak up there. He thought we’d have lots of fun seeing how far we could climb up it.”
“But where is the house?” cried Grace in a voice that was almost a wail. “Trees may be all very well, but I never heard of one keeping the rain off.”
“Look here!” called Betty. As usual she was the first to regain her wits. Going forward and looking around, she discovered what was hidden from the other girls where they stood, and the discovery filled her with dismay.
“Ashes,” she explained, as the girls hurried over to her. “I guess there’s no doubt but what this is the place all right. And probably the shack stood here once.”
“Burned down!” said Mollie, in a low voice. “Oh, Betty, now what are we going to do?”
And she might well ask the question. Except for the tell-tale ashes, no one would have knownthat there had ever been a cabin on that spot. The blaze which had consumed it had destroyed every timber. All that remained intact—and these were blackened and tarnished by the fire—were some pieces of metal which had probably been door hinges. Even the ashes looked as if they were not too recent. They were sodden and beaten into the soft earth as though by a terrific torrent of rain. There was a desolate look about the whole place, a depressing smell of burned wood lingered in the air.
Well might Mollie ask: “What are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Betty in reply to the question. But the next moment she had rallied and spoke in her ordinary voice.
“It’s hard luck, of course,” she said, “but after all it’s nothing to cry about. We’ll have to put up a tent, that’s all.”
“But we haven’t any,” protested Amy. “You know we didn’t bring any with us.”
“And we can’t stay in this forsaken place, without some sort of shelter,” added Grace, looking up anxiously to where the sky shone grayly through the trees. “Oh, girls, I think this is awful.”
“Well, what do you want to do about it?” asked the Little Captain, exasperated into losingher patience. “Do you want to go home and confess that you were stumped by the first little obstacle you found in your way? That would be fine for the Outdoor Girls, I must say.”
“No, of course we don’t want to do any such thing,” said Mollie, stoutly. “We’ll stay and face it out some way. Although I must say,” she could not help adding, “that I don’t see how it’s to be done.”
“There’s the tarpaulin,” said Betty, her quick brain already working eagerly. “We’ve been camping enough and seen the boys erect enough tents to know how the job is done.”
“Oh, we could put up a real tent all right,” agreed Grace, enthusiasm for the adventure beginning to revive as she saw Betty’s plan. “But I don’t see how we can use a tarpaulin——”
“Neither do I,” confessed the Little Captain, with a whimsical chuckle. “But before I’m many minutes older I’m going to find out. Amy dear, would you mind stealing the tarpaulin from theGem? It’s a mean thing to do I know, but we need it just now more than the boat does.”
Amy agreed, and Betty fell to work giving orders like any general. And, like any general who is worth his salt, she herself headed the fray, working twice as hard as any of her army.
“Suppose you bring me some of those fallenbranches, Grace and Mollie,” she said. “Thank goodness for the storm they must have had here that ripped off all those perfectly good props for us.
“Try to bring me only those of the same length, girls, and pass them up if they’re brittle and rotten. I tell you, if we keep on like this we’ll have a perfectly good shelter before we know it. Just a minute—I’ll run and get my knife.”
Betty ran back to theGemand passed Amy carrying the tarpaulin.
“Back in a minute,” gasped the Little Captain, adding to herself as she clambered aboard the boat: “It’s stopped raining. That’s one stroke of luck.”
Then she was back again, starting to point a couple of the sticks which the girls had brought for her approval.
This done, she stacked up a small pile of shorter props, whittling these to a point as she had done the others. It was a neat job and, considering that Mollie and Amy and Grace pitched in with a will, soon completed.
Then Betty chose a spot where the trees were in pretty good position for the erecting of the tent and, squarely in the middle of this space, planted one of the long poles.
When they had fixed it securely, fastening itdown with pieces of rope to short stakes driven deep into the ground, Betty stood off to regard the work critically.
“Pretty good, so far as it goes,” she said, adding whimsically: “Unless we have a strong wind during the night. I don’t believe we even need the second long prop. Now let’s get busy and plant the short ones.”
As the girls caught the idea, their spirits began to soar and they worked feverishly. After the first shock of their discovery that the cabin which was to have served as their camp for the summer was no cabin at all but merely a heap of sodden ashes, they began rather to enjoy the new turn of affairs.
This was romance and adventure of the highest order, and with Betty’s resourcefulness and wit to do away with obstacles, they certainly intended to make the most of the circumstances.
They buried the short stakes in the ground at regular intervals, fastening them the same as they had the center one, and then, when all was in readiness, Betty, with Mollie’s help, stretched the tarpaulin over the supports.
By making small holes in the latter and passing pieces of stout rope through them and around the supports, the girls finally completed a job of which they were justly proud.
Ropes were also stretched from two of the smaller supports to the trunks of trees, and Betty fastened the loose end of the tarpaulin back with a safety pin, making an admirable flap.
“Pretty neat, for amateurs,” chuckled the Little Captain, when everything was done that could be done to make the improvised little tent secure and water tight. “It will give us shelter for the night anyway, and to-morrow we can think of something better to do.”
“Looks pretty nifty to me,” said Mollie, regarding their handiwork with intense satisfaction. “I reckon the boys themselves couldn’t have made a better job, considering the tools we had to work with.”
“Humph,” said Grace, “I bet they couldn’t have done as well.”
“My, we don’t like ourselves or anything, do we?” laughed Betty. “Now suppose, instead of patting ourselves on the back, we get busy and make a fire. I reckon we could stand a little something to eat.”
“I’ll go back to theGemand get some of the supplies,” volunteered Amy, adding, as she started off: “Somebody’d better help me though. It’ll be quite a job.”
“Go with her, will you, Mollie?” directed theLittle Captain. “Grace and I will get some brushwood together and start the fire.”
“There surely is plenty of firewood lying around loose,” remarked Grace, when Amy and Mollie had gone. “It wouldn’t take long to gather enough to start the whole woods blazing.”
“That’s what puzzles me,” said Betty, and Grace looked at her inquiringly.
“What do you mean?”
“Why,” said the Little Captain, straightening up and regarding Grace with a puzzled look, “I can’t understand how a shack the size of this one here could have burned to the ground without starting a serious fire in the woods. There must have been a terrible blaze.”
“I suppose,” said Grace thoughtfully, “there either was no wind at all or so very little that the flames went straight upward.”
“I hope,” said the Little Captain, as though speaking aloud, “that there aren’t any tramps around here.”
“Tramps!” Grace echoed the word, horrified. “Betty Nelson, what ever made you think of that?”