The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods Part 18

Migwan came along in the midst of the preparation and announced that her red middy tie had disappeared. The words were hardly out of her mouth when Hinpoha came in declaring that her bathing cap must have evaporated, for it was gone from the tent ropes where she had left it. The girls looked at one another with consternation in their faces. If some one wasn't playing a joke there must be a thief in camp! That one of the Winnebagos should be taking the other girls' things was inconceivable. They were bound to each other by bonds stronger than sisterhood; they knew each other's very thoughts, almost, and to suspect one of their number of stealing hurt worse than a blow; and yet here were their things disappearing almost under their hands! No, the thing was impossible. What would one Winnebago gain by taking the other girls' clothes? She could not wear them without instant detection and they would be worth nothing if sold. A scarf, a white skirt with a seam burst open, a tie with a spot of ink in it, a half-worn bathing cap--what could induce any one to take them? The thing became uncanny.

Nyoda wondered uncomfortably how long Sherry had been in camp the previous night before he had made himself known, and Gladys shuddered at the possibility of Ed Roberts having a hand in it.

Each time things had disappeared some one from Mountain Lake Camp had been over. The girls had been in the habit of leaving all their belongings open and spread around, with never a thought for their safety, but now they began putting them away carefully.

They all felt uncomfortable doing it and each one hoped she was un.o.bserved. There was an air of restraint about the camp that had never existed before, and it reacted in a general crossness.

The singing in the evening seemed all out of tune and the fire smoked because the wood was damp and everything had a false note in it. Nyoda was glad when it was time to blow the bugle.

Even then there was no immediate peace. No sooner were they settled in bed than from the lake below came the sound of a manly voice raised in song, accompanied by the strumming of a guitar.

"There's your lover, Gladys," giggled Sahwah, "I recognize his voice. He plays the guitar, his brother told me so." Gladys hid her face in the pillow and the girls kept on teasing her.

"Aren't you going to reward your gallant troubadour by tossing him a flower or a glove, or something?" called Nyoda from the other tent.

"I'd like to toss him a rock," said Gladys savagely to herself.

Finding his efforts unrecognized, the serenader finally desisted, and they heard the dipping of his paddle as he departed.

The girls were at work bright and early the next morning, for they were to be ready to leave for Blueberry Island by nine.

With a great waving of paddles the boys arrived promptly on the dot and jumped out to help stow the empty baskets for berries and the full baskets of lunch into the boats, together with the cups and kettles.

Gladys had been wondering all morning how she should treat Ed Roberts and stood around so quiet and pensive that Nyoda rallied her on her lack of spirits. "Are you so anxious to see your troubadour that you forget to talk?" she asked.

Gladys, suddenly grown weary of all this teasing, said vehemently, "I don't like Ed Roberts and I wish you would stop talking about him to me."

"Don't you really like him?" said Nyoda, grown serious in an instant.

Gladys shook her head. "He thinks I shouldn't talk to any one but himself, and he's forever trying to get me off into corners away from the others. All he talks is nonsense; calls me 'kid'

and 'girlie,' and actually tried to hold my hand when we were going down to the canoes that night. It makes me tired! I wish I didn't have to go to-day."

Nyoda puckered her brows, but thought best not to treat the matter too seriously, and merely said, "Stay near me all day and I don't think he will act that way."

There were sixteen of them altogether and only seven canoes, counting the _Keewaydin_, so one canoe had to carry four. When Nyoda got in with Sherry, Gladys got in right after her, and Ed Roberts, who was trying to get a canoe for himself, either had to get in also or let some one else have the place. He chose the former and was placed as bow paddler with his back to the others and Nyoda between him and Gladys.

The day was perfect and every one in high spirits. The berries were thick on the Island and the baskets were filled with little trouble. Gladys kept close to Nyoda. After a courteous greeting she had paid no further attention to Ed, and during the picking he stayed in the background, sulky and chagrined. When the berries were picked Gladys went to help Nyoda make the blueberry pudding, which was to crown the feast. Sherry sought out Ed Roberts. "You big b.o.o.b," he said, "why don't you take that Gladys girl away from Miss Kent and keep her entertained? She's sticking so close beside her I have no chance to talk at all.

Where are your manners, anyway, leaving her without a partner?"

Ed looked at him sourly, and then he brightened at the prospect of having Sherry for an ally.

"If you can manage to lose her somewhere near me I'd be delighted," he said. But Gladys steadfastly refused to be "lost"

and Nyoda was constantly requiring her a.s.sistance, so the two were never very far away from each other.

Sahwah and Ned were having a glorious time. He was teaching her to shoot her rifle and she was proving a very apt pupil indeed, hitting the paper three times out of five the first round. Not so Hinpoha, who was also being taught. She took aim with her left eye and pulled the trigger with her right hand and the result was that she could not even hit the tree on which the paper was fastened. She screwed her face up into a frightful grimace and turned her head away when she fired, as if she expected the explosion to blow her head off. But Ned gallantly a.s.sured her that she would be a good shot in time and never made one remark about "the way girls do such things." Hinpoha persisted until she had hit the paper once and then left to put her slumgullion over the fire, a.s.sisted by Lane Allen, who had followed her around since the first night he visited the camp.

Soon dinner was ready and the hungry crowd spread out on the rocks to be served with good things cooked over the open fire.

"Leave room for blueberry pudding!" Gladys cautioned every one, viewing with alarm the quant.i.ties of slumgullion and sandwiches that were being consumed. "No danger!" laughed Ned. "I could eat everything in sight and still have room for all the blueberry pudding you have. Bring it on!" Gladys served every one with a heaping big dish, and with "'Ohs" and "Ahs" of enjoyment they sent it the way of the rest of the feast.

"Now we must heat water to wash the dishes," said Nyoda, when every one had reached the limit of eating.

"You let us fellows attend to that," said Sherry decisively, "it's enough that you got the dinner." He calmly took her big cook's ap.r.o.n away from her and put it on himself. The boys fell to with a will and the dishes were soon off the scene. In the afternoon they divided the company into two parts and had a shooting match with Sahwah's rifle. Some of the girls surprised themselves by hitting the paper the first time, and more than one hit the bull's eye before her round was over. Ed Roberts called out the wrath of Sherry because he would point the gun at people, and lost his turn in consequence, which did not improve his temper. Later he received a sharp rebuke from Sahwah because he wanted her to shoot at a song sparrow, and retired to the beach by himself to mope. He was no more like his frank, courteous, sunny-hearted twin brother than day is like night, and Nyoda understood fully Gladys's aversion to him.

They went paddling home in the rosy sunset singing "A Perfect Day," which it had been to every one but Ed Roberts, all vowing that they must get together again before the camps broke up.

Long after the others were wrapped in slumber Sahwah lay staring into the moonlight. She was never more wide awake. The night was hot and the blankets seemed to stifle her. "I can't sleep!"

she declared to herself as she thumped her pillow for the twentieth time, "I'm going to get up awhile."

She stepped softly out of bed, slipped on her sweater and stood at the door of the tent looking out into the night. By and by her feet began to move as by their own impulse and carried her down the path to the lake. The _Keewaydin_ lay on the beach bathed in moonlight, and scarcely knowing what she was doing she drew it down to the water's edge, launched it and got in. She had no thought of disobeying Nyoda by going out after bedtime; she was not thinking at all; she was moving in a sort of wide-awake dream. It was one of those strange wild fancies that seize girls in their teens and she was going out to play in the moonlight like an elf. The lake exerted its magic influence over her and drew her to itself when awake as it had done once before in her sleep. Straight across the lake she paddled, following the path of the moonbeams, to where the rocky sh.o.r.e reared its steep cliffs on the other side. At the base of one of the highest cliffs there was a tiny cave and into this Sahwah steered the _Keewaydin_. Inside it was as black as ink and so low that she had to bend her head.

"Chaos and ancient night--"

The words came aimlessly into her mind. From afar off in the depths of the cave came the sound of water falling. She shuddered at the awfulness of it and backed the canoe out.

During those minutes she had spent in the cave a change had come over the moon. It was fast becoming veiled and a heavy mist was settling on the lake, closing around her like a mantle. She had not the slightest idea where she was, nor in which direction she was going. The spell of the moonlight was gone and she was wide awake. She felt chilly and very much afraid. She lost her sense of direction and dared not steer out toward the middle of the lake, but kept close to the sh.o.r.e, following the sound of the waves as they dashed on the rocks. A strong breeze sprang up and the light canoe tossed like a blossom in the wind. On and on around that great curve of the sh.o.r.e line she paddled, until her arms ached from the strain.

The waves flung themselves upon the rocks with a horrible moaning sound that chilled the marrow of her bones. Then came the weirdest sensation that something was swimming after the boat.

It was really only the swirls made by the rocks below, but in that queer light every wave seemed topped by a head that twisted its neck after her and then started in pursuit. Her teeth chattered, and her hands trembled so she could hardly hold the paddle. Thus pa.s.sed the night--fearful, unreal, endless. When morning came the mists began to lift and she could see where she was. She was quite close to camp, still very near to sh.o.r.e. She had paddled halfway around the circ.u.mference of the lake, a distance of nearly twelve miles. In the hush of dawn she beached the _Keewaydin_ and crept up to bed, falling asleep immediately from exhaustion.

No one knew that she had gone out, and she never told any one, not even Nyoda. It was not that she was afraid to tell Nyoda that she had broken bounds, but the whole experience seemed so unreal to her that she did not see how she could ever explain it at all. She knew it was not her fault and at the same time she knew that she would never do it again, and so it remained a secret. In fact, in a few days she was not at all sure that she had not dreamed the whole thing--except for her shoulder, which was lame for a week.

The morning after Sahwah's nocturnal journey the camp was thrown into consternation by the discovery that Nyoda's sweater was gone. The last time she remembered having it was coming home from Blueberry Island, when she had given it to Sherry to hold while she unpacked the cups from the canoes. This was the first thing of value that had been taken, but it might not be the last, and Nyoda was really worried. Sahwah's fine furs were in a trunk in the shack, along with the rest of her presents, and she remembered with a start that Sahwah had shown them all to the boys when they were over. Since yesterday a distrust of Ed Roberts sprang up in her mind, and she wondered if there could be any connection between his determined hanging around the camp and the disappearance of the articles. Might not the taking of the unimportant things at first be a deliberate blind? Calling Sahwah she made her put all the things from Canada in the trunk and locked it securely, after first weighting it down with stones so that it could not be carried away bodily by less than six men.

A short time later Sahwah came in in a high state of excitement.

Her bathing suit was gone! Here was trouble indeed. Sahwah would have been sorry if the furs had been stolen, but it would not have roused her half so much as the taking of her bathing suit.

Sahwah without a bathing suit was like a horse without a head.

"I'm going to sit up all night and watch," she declared.

"We'll all sit up, I think," said Nyoda. "If the thief comes again he'll find a bivouac." Accordingly that night they all stayed up, sitting in the shadow of the shack. The tents were plainly visible in the moonlight. The place was as calm and still as a churchyard, and did not look as if it could be the scene of such mysterious doings. Hour after hour pa.s.sed and nothing happened. The thief had evidently changed his mind to-night. The girls yawned and dozed and wished they were in bed. Suddenly there was a cras.h.i.+ng in the underbrush that made the girls sit up as if an electric shock had pa.s.sed through them.

With a rapid snapping of dry twigs and waving of tall gra.s.s the bushes parted and a great St. Bernard puppy dashed up the path to the tents. Seizing a bath towel that hung on a rope he worried it for a moment with his jaws and then made off with it in the direction he had come.

For a moment astonishment held them speechless, then Sahwah broke into her giggle and they all screamed with laughter. The thought of the weighted trunk overcame them and they doubled up weakly on the shack floor. Ten minutes later the puppy was back again, looking for something else to chew. They drove him off with switches and he ran yelping with his tail between his legs. He never came again. "I don't doubt but what we'll find all our belongings scattered through the woods," said Nyoda. Which was exactly the case. A search by daylight disclosed all the missing articles, strewn through the various paths and hollows, all more or less chewed, but still recognizable. Thus the specter of suspicion that had been hovering over the camp vanished into thin air.

In spite of the fact that Gladys had made her feeling toward Ed Roberts perfectly plain, the nocturnal serenades continued.

Nightly at about half-past nine, they would hear a canoe sc.r.a.pe on the rocks in the shadow of the great cliff, and then the voice and the guitar would begin. For fifteen minutes or more the songs would float up to the occupants of the tents, and then the serenader would paddle away. The girls never gave any sign of hearing, but this did not seem to discourage the singer any.

They had ceased to tease Gladys about Ed and were no longer thrilled at the serenades. The business was getting monotonous.

Nyoda thought of sending word over to the head of the boys' camp and having him put a stop to it; but this course struck her as ridiculous and she determined to go down herself the next night and send Ed about his business.

Accordingly, when the first strains rose from the lake the next night, she went down the path to the foot of the cliff, while the girls above listened breathless for what would happen. She saw the dim figure in the canoe outlined against the tall rock and crossed the beach toward him. "Roberts!" she called sharply, "Ed Roberts!" The singer ceased his song at the sound of her voice and looked around. Nyoda stopped in confusion. The youth in the boat was not Ed Roberts. It was Sherry, the Senior Counsellor.

"You came down at last?" he said joyfully.

When Nyoda returned to the tents the girls eagerly demanded to know "what he had said." But she waved all their questions and sent them back to bed. Only to Gladys's, "Will he stop serenading us now?" she returned a short, non-committal "Yes."

CHAPTER XI.

ON SHADOW RIVER.

The long awaited canoe trip, which had been put off "until Gladys learned to swim," had at last become a reality, and bright and early one morning the Winnebagos started off on a fifteen-mile paddle up the Shadow River. Sahwah led the procession in the _Keewaydin_, uttering shouts which she fondly believed to be in imitation of an Indian warrior. Her new hunting knife hung at one side of her belt, her own hatchet on the other, while the rest of the s.p.a.ce was decorated with her Wohelo knife and a string of enormous safety pins with which to pin her blankets together. In the bottom of the canoe reposed her rifle. Nyoda had to turn her head away to hide a smile when she saw the outfit. Sahwah looked like a floating cutlery store. Just why she should elect to impersonate a brave instead of an Indian maiden was not clear to Nyoda, but this was only another ill.u.s.tration of her whimsical temperament. Part of the time the stay-at-home duties appealed to her; the care of the hearthfire, the cooking and cleaning and hand-craft; and then again her imagination was kindled by tales of scouts and warriors and she longed for the wild life of the hunter.

Migwan, on the other hand, was the picture of shy, dreamy girlhood, as she sat in the bottom of the canoe and let herself be paddled along by two other girls so she might have her hands free for writing down her impressions of the trip. Describing it in a letter to her mother, she wrote:

"I am packed in like a sardine between the ponchos and supplies.

Can you imagine me sitting in an inch of water, with one foot straight up in the air, the other doubled under somebody's poncho, and scarcely daring to breathe for fear of disturbing the balance, placidly doing beadwork? It is quite an accomplishment to thread a needle in a pitching canoe, but every one has mastered the art."

The trip up the Shadow River was ideally beautiful. The scenery was still wild and natural, and the foliage very dense. Many of the trees along the banks had four or five trunks, and leaned far out over the water, making the shadows which gave the river its name. A crane, startled by the approach of the canoes, rose in wheeling flight over their heads. The willows waved their feathery boughs in the sun and gleamed bright against the dark background of the pines. Migwan noted down the different contours of the trees, how the elms spread out wide at the top, how the pines tapered to a point, how the maples spread out irregularly. A flock of wild ducks pa.s.sed them. In some places the banks of the river were honeycombed by the holes of bank swallows. A turtle, sitting on a half-sunken log, stretched his neck and looked after them as long as he could see them. All these things Migwan saw and set down in her book with a quiet enjoyment.