The Girl Scout Pioneers Part 20

"Think? This is no time for thinking," answered Grace, who was busying herself with a complicated system of cords. "I'm trying to puzzle out the best way to demonstrate a sheep-shank knot," and she kept on with her endeavor, flipping the cord ends this way and that, while Madaline, all impatience, looked down at her chum.

"Trying to tie a sheep-shank!" gasped the Bearer of tidings, as she presently proved herself to be. "Why, the very idea! You pa.s.sed that test long ago--you're no tenderfoot!"

"I know it, but Captain Clark said she was going to ask me to show a new group of candidates some knots, and I thought I'd practice a bit."

"Practice!" repeated Madaline, "well, to use your own words, this is no time to practice. Oh, Grace! I can hardly tell you!"

"Don't tell me it's anything bad!" exclaimed the manipulator of the knots. "Has anything happened? Is Cleo or Margaret--"

"No, no! It isn't anything like that. Cleo and Margaret are all right, and they'll be here in a little while. I ran on ahead to tell you, and Captain Clark is coming, too, with them."

"Well, of all things!" Grace burst out, laying aside the strings.

"Something simply must have happened. Do you mean to say the delegation is waiting on me, to inform me that I have been picked out for some signal honor, ahem!" and she rose, bowing elaborately.

"We have all been picked out for signal honor!" bubbled Madaline.

"You aren't the only one. Put up that knot business. You can show the tenderfeet when you get back."

"Oh, are we going away?" asked Grace. "Mystery piled on mystery.

Do tell me!"

"I thought I'd get you anxious," laughed Madaline. "Well, it's just this, and it's simply glorious! We're going camping!"

"Camping? Who? When? Where? What, and all the rest of it?" and she fired the questions in a well-aimed volley at her friend.

"Just we four and the Captain, of course," resumed Madaline, seating herself on a mossy log beside Grace, who had selected this seat in the woods as a silent seclusion, there to evolve a scheme for imparting primary knowledge of Girl Scout work, to a group of younger members who had lately joined.

"We called at your house to tell you," continued Madaline, "but your mother said you were over here in the woods, so we came to find you--all four of us. I just ran on ahead--I couldn't wait for the others."

"I'm so glad you did," said Grace, warmly. "But how does it come that we four are picked out from all the troop?"

"Well, I fancy it's because we sort of out-did ourselves in the tests, and helped to get such, a satisfactory report. Captain Clark said she wanted to reward us in some way, and the opportunity came, so she pounced on it, or seized it or grasped it--you know--whatever you properly should do to an opportunity."

"Grasped is the word, I believe," Grace decided. "But what is the opportunity?"

"To go camping," retorted Madaline.

"Friends of Captain Clark have offered her the use of their perfectly gorgeous camp in Allbright Woods. It's a place none of us has ever visited, and well just have scrumptious times. We're to spend the week-end here--just Captain Clark and we four. She asked some of the other girls, but they couldn't make it. Now drop all this knotty business, be joyous, hurry, and get ready. They'll be here in a minute. Isn't that good news?"

"The best ever," a.s.sented Grace, and then, as she gathered up her strings, there appeared, coming through the grove of trees, Captain Clark, Margaret and Cleo.

"Whoo-oo!" came the gleeful greeting, and hands fluttered as if conveying, in wig-wag talk, the joyous message.

"Did she tell you, Grace?" cooed Cleo.

"Wasn't that what I sprinted on ahead for?" demanded Madaline.

"And do say you can go!" begged Margaret.

"Is it really so, Captain?" asked Grace, a bit timidly, as if she feared to trust the good news. "Are we going camping?"

"As if a true Girl Scout ever joked!" mocked Madaline.

"Well, I know you of old, before you became a G. S.," retorted Grace.

"Yes, my dear, we are really to spend a week-end in the woods if you can manage it," replied Captain Clark. "Some generous friends of mine, who have been unexpectedly called away from their place for a time, have offered to let me use it. And I could think of no better way of rewarding you four for your faithful work, than to give you this opportunity. I am sorry more could not manage to go, but it could not be arranged. So, Grace, if you will come back with us, and see if your folks will not object, we shall begin our preparations at once."

"Oh, they won't object--not when I talk to them!" declared the girl, in a tone that made the others laugh. "But how do we go; by train!"

"No, we are going in an auto, and all you need to take will be your personal belongings. The camp is stocked with food, and there is even a cook and a caretaker, a colored man and his wife."

"Say, this is camping de luxe!" exclaimed Cleo. "Wouldn't it be more fun to rough it?"

"It will be rough enough," a.s.serted the Captain. "We shall be allowed to cook for ourselves if we choose, but the helpers are there in case of emergency."

"In case the eggs refuse to scramble," murmured Margaret.

"Something like that, yes," a.s.sented Captain Clark.

As had been expected and hoped, there was no objection raised at the home of Grace, and two days later found the happy four, under the guidance of Captain Clark, on their way to Camp Nomoko, in the Allbright Woods. It was the best reward that could have been devised for the girls, and they expressed genuine sorrow at the fate of others of True Tred who must be left behind for one reason or another. But the girls of the troop were not to be exactly desolate during the days their more fortunate friends were camping--Flosston in itself offered many happy opportunities.

"Are the Allbright Woods very wild?" asked Grace, as the auto left the main road and began the trip along a less frequented highway, the day following the inception of the plan.

"Wild enough, I fancy you'll find," said the Captain. "My friends think it an ideal outdoor place in many respects. I hope you will like it."

"Don't worry, please, we shall," declared Margaret.

Each girl took along a small suitcase, filled with such belongings as she thought she would need. These, of course, included their complete scout uniforms, while they wore dresses of plain but serviceable material, which would almost serve the purpose of their khaki outfits, in case they were obliged, for any reason, to lay those aside in camp. It was decided two outfits were necessary, and the uniforms packed easiest.

Captain Clark's friends had even sent their car for the girls to make the trip to Nomoko, so there was really little for the quartette to do except pack up and start. As Cleo had remarked it was almost camping de luxe.

The journey, though enjoyable, was almost lost in the real joy of camping antic.i.p.ation.

"Here we are!" announced the Captain, after a ride of about four hours in the car, during which time no worse mishap occurred than a blowout, and for this the chauffeur was ready with an already inflated "spare," so little time was lost in replacing the tire.

"Does he stay with us--at camp, I mean?" asked Cleo in a whisper, pointing to the driver, as the car swung into a rough wood road.

"No, he is to go back to his own duties as soon as he leaves us at Nomoko," answered Captain Clark in a low voice. "But he will bring us home Tuesday, when my friends return to their tents."

"And will we be left all alone in the camp, without means of getting out of the woods if we want to go?" asked Margaret.

"Well, I believe there is a branch railroad line about ten miles away," said Captain Clark, "and if we have to--"

"We can walk, of course!" interrupted Cleo. "That's a mere sprint.

A ten-mile hike is a trifle."

"Did you say triffle or truffle?" asked Grace.

"Truffles don't grow here, nothing but mushrooms and toadstools,"

broke in Margaret. "All Girl Scouts ought to know that!" "Thanks for the information," retorted Grace. "Oh, what a perfectly scrumptious place!" she exclaimed as, after some rather severe jolting and swaying from side to side, the auto came to a stop in the depths of a grove of trees, amid which were pitched several tents and a slab-sided shack; from the stovepipe of the shack smoke drifted, and with it emanated the most appetizing odors.