Camp Fire Girls The at Long Lake Part 9

"Go away, you fool!" muttered John. "This is your doing. If you and Peter had not been afraid of your own shadow, this would not have happened. I am glad they have caught you; you will go to prison now, like me."

"Look here, young feller," said Andrew, angrily, "that ain't no way to talk to a lady, hear me! She may be a bad one, but she's stuck to you. If you get off any more talk like that I'll see if a dip in the lake will make you feel more polite like. See?"

John gave no answer, but relapsed into his sullen silence again.

Eleanor approached Lolla gently.

"We are not angry with you, Lolla," she said, kindly. "No, nor with John. You love him, do you?"

Lolla gave no answer, but looked up into Eleanor's face with eyes that spoke plainly enough.

"I thought so. Then you do not want him to go to prison? Try to make him tell why he did this. If he will do that, perhaps he can go free, and you and Peter, too. You wouldn't like to have to leave your people, and not be able to travel along the road, and do all the things you are used to doing, would you?

"Well, I am afraid that is what will happen to you, unless John will tell all he knows. They will take you away, soon now, and you will go down to the town and there you will be locked up, all three of you, and you and John will not even see one another, for a long time--two or three years, maybe, or even longer--"

Still Lolla could not speak. But she began to cry, quietly, but with a display of suffering that moved Eleanor. After all, she felt Lolla was little more than a girl, and, though she had done wrong, very wrong, she had never had a proper chance to learn how to do what was right.

"I'm sorry for you, Lolla," said Eleanor. "We all are. We think you didn't know what you were doing, and how wicked it was. I will do my best for you, but your best chance is to make John tell all he knows."

"How can I? He blames me. He says if I and Peter hadn't been such cowards all would have been well. He is angry at me; he will not forgive me."

"Oh, yes, he will, Lolla. I am sure he loves you, and that he did this wicked thing because he wanted to have much money to spend buying nice things for you; pretty dresses, and a fine wagon, with good horses. So he will be sorry for speaking angrily to you, soon, and you will be able to make him tell the truth, if you only try. Will you try?"

"Yes," decided Lolla, suddenly. "I think you are good--that you forgive us. Do you?"

"I certainly do. After all, you see, Lolla, you haven't done us any harm."

Lolla pointed to Bessie.

"Will she forgive me?" she inquired. "I tricked her--made a fool of her--but she made a fool of me afterward. I lied to her; will she forgive me, too, like you?"

"Did you hear that, Bessie?" asked Eleanor, by way of answer to the gypsy girl's question.

"Yes," said Bessie. "I'm sorry you did it, Lolla, because I only wanted to help your man, and if you hadn't done what you said you were going to do, and helped me to get Dolly away from him, he wouldn't be in all this trouble now.

"But you didn't understand about that, and you helped your own people instead of a stranger. I don't think that's such a dreadful thing to do. It's something like a soldier in a war. He may think his country is wrong, but if there's a battle he has to fight for it, just the same."

"But remember that the best way to help John now is to make him see that he has been wrong, and to try to make him understand that he can make up for his wickedness by helping us to punish the bad man who got him to do this," said Eleanor. "That man, you see, was too much of a coward to do his work himself, so he got your man to do it, knowing that if anyone was to be punished he would escape, and John would get into trouble.

"John doesn't owe anything to a man like that; he needn't think he's got to keep him out of trouble. The man wouldn't do it for him. He won't help him now. He'll pretend he doesn't know anything about this at all."

"I will try," promised Lolla. "But I think John is angry with me, and will not listen. But I will do my best."

And, after a little while, which the guides used to cook a meal, and to rest after their strenuous tramping in the effort to find the missing girls, Andrew told off half a dozen of them to make their way to the county seat, a dozen miles away, with the three gypsies.

"Just get them there and turn them over to the sheriff, boys," said the old guide. "He'll hold them safe until they've been tried, and we won't have any call to worry about them no more. But be careful while you're on your way down. They're slippery customers, and as like as not to try to run away from you and get to their own people."

"You leave that to me," said the guide who was to be in charge of the party. "If they get away from us, Andrew, they'll be slicker than anyone I ever heard tell of, anywhere. We won't hurt them none, but they'll walk a chalk line, right in front of us, or I'll know the reason why."

"All right," said Andrew. "Better be getting started, then. Don't want to make it too late when you get into town with them. Let the girl rest once in a while; she looks purty tired to me."

Bessie and Dolly and the other girls watched the little procession start off on the trail, and Bessie, for one, felt sorry for Lolla, who looked utterly disconsolate and hopeless.

"We couldn't let them go free, I suppose," said Eleanor, regretfully. "But I do feel sorry for that poor girl. I don't think she liked the idea from the very first, but she couldn't help herself. She had to do what the men told her. Women don't rank very high among the gypsies; they have to do what the men tell them, and they're expected to do all the work and take all the hard knocks beside."

"You're right; there's nothing else to do, ma'am," said old Andrew. "Well, guess the rest of us guides had better be gettin' back to work. Ain't nothin' else we can do fer you, is there, ma'am?"

"I don't think so. I don't suppose we need be afraid of the other gypsies, Andrew? Are they likely to try to get revenge for what has happened to their companions?"

"Pshaw! They'll be as quiet as lambs for a long time now. They was a breakin' up camp over there by Loon Pond when the boys come away last time. Truth is, I reckon they're madder at John and his pals for gettin' the whole camp into trouble than they are at us.

"You see, they know they needn't show their noses around here fer a long time now; not until this here s.h.i.+ndy's had a chance to blow over an' be forgotten. And there ain't many places where they've been as welcome as over to the pond."

"I shouldn't think they'd be very popular here in the woods."

"They ain't, ma'am; they ain't, fer a fact. More'n once we've tried to make the hotel folks chase them away, but they sort of tickled the summer boarders over there, and so the hotel folks made out as they weren't as bad as they were painted, and was ent.i.tled to a chance to make camp around there as long as they behaved themselves."

"I suppose they never stole any stuff from the hotel?"

"That's jest it. They knew enough to keep on the right side of them people, you see, an' they did their poachin' in our woods. Any time they've been around it's always meant more work for us, and hard work, too."

"Well, I should think that after this experience the people at the hotel would see that the gypsies aren't very good neighbors, after all."

"That's what we're counting on, ma'am. Seems to me, from what I just happened to pick up, that there was some special reason, like, for this varmint to have acted that way today, or last night, maybe it was. Some feller in the city as was back of him."

"There was, Andrew, I'm afraid; a man who ought to know better, and whom you wouldn't suspect of allowing such a dreadful thing to be done."

Andrew shook his head wisely.

"It's hard to know what to wish," she said. "Sometimes a man is much worse when he comes out of prison than he was when he went in. It seems just to harden them, and make it impossible for them to get started on the right road again."

"It's their fault for going wrong in the fust place," said the old guide, sternly. "That's what I say. I don't take any stock in these new fangled notions of makin' the jail pleasant for them as does wrong. Make 'em know they're goin' to have a hard time, an' they'll be lest willin' to take chances of goin' wrong and bein' caught with the goods, like this feller here today. I bet you when he gets out of jail he'll be so scared of gettin' back that he'll be pretty nearly as good as a white man."

"Of course, the main thing is to frighten any of the others from acting the same way," said Eleanor. "I think the hotel will be sorry it let those gypsies stay around there. Because it's very sure that mothers who have children there will be nervous, and they'll go away to some place where they can feel their children are safe.

"Well, good-bye, Andrew. I'm glad you think it's safe now. I really would like to feel that we can get along by ourselves here, but, of course, I wouldn't let any pride stand in the way of safety, and if you thought it was better I'd ask you to leave one of the men here."

"No call for that, ma'am. You've shown you can get along all right. We didn't have nothin' to do with gettin' Miss Dolly away from that scamp today. It was her chum done that. Goodbye."

CHAPTER XV.

A FRIENDLY CONTEST.

Morning found both Dolly and Bessie refreshed, and, though the other girls asked them anxiously about themselves, neither seemed to feel any ill effects after the excitement of the previous day, with its series of surprising events. Dolly, at first, was a little chastened, and seemed wholly ready to stay quietly in camp. And, indeed, all the girls decided that it would be better, for the time at least, not to venture far into the woods.

"I think it's as safe as ever now, along the well-known trails that are used all the time," said Miss Eleanor, "but, after all, we don't know much about the gypsies. Some of them may be hanging around still, even if the main party of them has moved on, and we do know that they are a revengeful race; that when one of them is hurt, or injured in any way, they are very likely not to rest until the injury is avenged. They don't care much whether they hurt the person who is guilty or not; his relatives or his friends will satisfy them equally well"

"I'm perfectly willing to stay right here by the lake," said Margery Burton, "for one. It's as nice here as it can possibly be anywhere else. I'd like someone to go in swimming with me."

"If it isn't too cold I will," cried Dolly, cheerfully.

And so, after the midday meal--two hours afterward, too, for Eleanor Mercer was too wise a Guardian to allow them to run any risk by going into the water before their food had been thoroughly digested--bathing suits were brought out, and Margery Burton, or Minnehaha, as the one who had proposed the sport, was unanimously elected a committee of one to try the water, and see if it was warm enough for swimming.

"And no tricks, Margery!" warned Dolly. "I know you, and if you found it was cold it would be just like you to pretend it was fine so that we'd all get in and be as cold as you were yourself!"

"I'll be good! I promise," laughed Margery, and, without any preliminary hesitation on the water's edge, she walked to the end of the little dock that was used for the boats and plunged boldly in. She was a splendid swimmer, a fact that had once, when Bessie had first joined the Camp Fire, nearly cost her her life, for, seeing her upset, no one except Bessie had thought it necessary to jump in after her, and she had actually been slightly stunned, so that she had been unable to swim.

But this time there was no accident. She disappeared under the water with a beautiful forward dive, and plunged along for many feet before she rose to the surface, laughing, and shaking the water out of her eyes. Then, treading water, she called to the group on the dock.

"It's all right for everyone but Dolly, I think," she cried. "I'm afraid it would be too cold for her. I like it; I think it's great!"

"You can't fool me," said Dolly, and, without any more delay, she too plunged in. But she rose to the surface at once, gasping for breath, and looking about for Margery.

"Why, it's as cold as ice!" she exclaimed. "Ugh! I'm nearly frozen to death! Margery, why didn't you tell me it was so cold?"

"I did, stupid!" laughed Margery. "I said it was warm enough for me, but that I was afraid it would be too cold for you, didn't I?"

"I--I thought you were just fooling me; you knew I'd never let the others go in if I didn't!"

"It's not my fault if you wouldn't believe me. All I promised was to tell you whether it was cold or not! Come on, you girls! It is cold, but you won't mind it after you've been in for a minute!"

"Look out! Give me room for a dive!" cried Eleanor Mercer, suddenly appearing from her tent. "I know this water; I've been in it every year since I was a lot smaller than you. I'm afraid of it every year the first time I go in, but how I do love it afterward!"

And, running at full speed, she sped down to the edge of the dock, leaped up and turned a somersault, making a beautiful dive that filled the girls who were still dry with envy. And a moment later they were all in, swimming happily and enjoying themselves immensely. All, that is, except Zara, who could not swim.

"Oh, I wish I could dive like that, Miss Eleanor!" exclaimed Bessie, who had been one of the first to go into the water.

"Oh, that's nothing; you can learn easily, Bessie. You swim better than any of us. Isn't this water cold for you? I should think you wouldn't be used to it. All the others have been in pretty cold water before now."

"Oh, so have I! You see, around Hedgeville we used to go into the regular swimming holes, and they never get very warm. There's no beach, you just go in off the bank, and most of the swimming holes have trees all around them so that they're shady, and the sun doesn't strike them. They're in the shade all the time, and that keeps the water cold. This is warmer than that, ever so much."

"I tell you what we'll do, girls; we'll fix up a spring-board and have some lessons in real diving. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"It certainly would! I'd love to be able to do a backward dive!"

"Well, this is a good place to learn; no one around to make you nervous, and good deep water. It's sixteen or seventeen feet off that dock, all the time, and that's deep enough for almost any diving; for any that we're likely to do, certainly."

Later they talked it over again, when they had dried and resumed the clothes they wore about the camp, and Eleanor Mercer, her enthusiasm warming her cheeks, told them something they had not heard even a hint of as yet.

"A friend of mine is scoutmaster of a troop of Boy Scouts," she said. "And he has teased me, sometimes, about our work. He says we just imitate the Boy Scouts, and that we just pretend we're camping out and doing all the things they do. Well, I told him that some time we'd have a contest with them, and show them; a regular field day. And, just for fun, we made up a sort of list of events."

"Oh, what were they?"

"Well, we planned to start in, all morning, and make a regular trip, cook meals, and come back. And on the way we to divide into parties; there are three patrols his troop, you know, and we could divide up the same way. The parties were to keep in touch with one another by smoke signals--they're made with blankets--and there was to be a fire-making contest, to see which could make fire quickest without matches. And, oh, lots of other things."

"That would be fine."

"Then I got reckless, I think. I said my girls could beat his boys in the water--that we could swim better--I meant more usefully, not just faster, in a race, because I think they'd beat us easily in just a plain race. And I'm afraid I boasted a little."

"I bet you didn't; I bet we can do just as well as any old Boy Scouts!" exclaimed Dolly. "I wish we just had the chance, that's all."

"Well, you have," said Eleanor, with a smile. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, girls. Mr. Hastings is over at Third Lake right now with one patrol of his troop. He got there yesterday and the way I happened to hear about it was that he was on his way over yesterday morning--he got in ahead of the boys--to help us look for Dolly and Bessie, when they were found."

"Oh, that's fine! And shall we have that field day?"

"Later on, before we go home, yes. But he began teasing me again yesterday, and I told him we'd have a water carnival any time he wanted to bring his boys over. And he said they'd come Sat.u.r.day."

"We'll have to get ready and show them what we can do, then," said Margery Burton, with determination in her voice. "My brother's a Boy Scout, and I know just what they're like; they think we're just the same as all the other girls they know. I tell you what would be fun; to get up a baseball team."

"Maybe we'll try that later," said Eleanor. "But right now we want to be ready for Sat.u.r.day. So I'll teach you everything I can. And I'm quite sure we can beat them in a life-saving drill; their three best against our three. We'd have you, Margery, and Bessie, and Dolly Ransom."

So it was agreed, and they all began to practice.

"I wish I could do something," said Zara, wistfully. "But I don't believe I could learn to swim before Sat.u.r.day."

"You could learn to keep yourself afloat," said Margery. "But that wouldn't be much good, of course. You'd rather not go in at all, I suppose, unless you could really swim."

"I know what I could do, though," said Zara, suddenly, after she had watched Bessie go through the life saving drill. But she would not confide her idea to anyone but Miss Mercer, who looked more than doubtful when she heard it.

"I don't know, Zara," she said, "I'll see. It seems a little risky. But I'll think it over. It would be splendid, but, well, we'll see."

Speed swimming, pure racing, was barred when Sat.u.r.day came. But with Scoutmaster Hastings and Miss Mercer as referees, and three summer visitors from the Loon Pond Hotel, who had no prejudice in favor of either side as judges, several contests were arranged that called for skill rather than strength.

"In this diving," Hastings explained to the judges, "what we want to figure on is the way they do it. If a dive is graceful, and the diver strikes the water true, going straight down, with arms and legs held close together, you give so many points for that. I'll make each dive first; that will serve as a model, you see."

Scoutmaster Hastings was not speaking in a boastful manner. He was a noted diver, and had won prizes and medals in many meets for his skill. And, when everything was arranged, he did all the standard dives from the spring-board at the end of the dock, and three members of each organization followed him.

Bessie had taken remarkably well to these new tricks, as she considered them. Her powers as a swimmer no one had questioned, but it was remarkable to see how quickly she had acquired the ability to dive well and gracefully. And, to the surprise and chagrin of the Boy Scouts, who had expected, as boys always do, when they are pitted against girls, to win so easily that they could afford to be magnanimous, and to abstain from gloating, the judges were unanimous in deciding that she had done better than any of the six compet.i.tors in all five of the standard dives in which Hastings showed the way.

As there were six compet.i.tors, the judges awarded six points for first place in each dive, five for second, four for third, three for fourth, two for fifth, and one for sixth place. And in two of the dives second place went to Margery Burton, while one of the Boy Scouts, Jack Perry, was second in the other four.

To the disgust of the other boys, Margery was placed third in the four dives in which Jack Perry beat her, and Dolly, a good, but not a really wonderful diver, was fifth in every one of the dives, beating at least one boy in each. So sixty-six points altogether went to the Camp Fire Girls, while the Boy Scouts, who had expected to finish one, two, three, had to be content with forty-eight, and were soundly beaten.

"That girl that was first is a wonder," said Hastings admiringly to Miss Mercer. "I take it all back, Eleanor. But I didn't think you'd have anyone as good as she is. Why, she's better than you are, and I always thought you were the nearest to a fish of any girl I ever saw in the water. She could win the woman's champions.h.i.+p with a little more practice."

"Maybe you won't crow so much over us after this," said Eleanor, with a laugh.

"Not about the diving, certainly," said Hastings, generously, "But that's tricky, after all. The life saving is going to be different There strength figures more. I really think my boys ought to give a handicap in that."

"Not a bit of it," said Eleanor. "Women have been taking handicaps from men too long. They've got so that they think they can't do anything as well as a man. This Camp Fire movement is going to show you that that's all over and done with."

"Well, we'll go through the tests first," said Hastings. "Then your girls will know what they've got to beat, anyhow."