CHAPTER X
THE SIGNAL SMOKES
"There's smoke, Dolly!" cried Bessie, triumphantly. "Oh, but we've beaten them on this! Ours must have gone up twenty minutes before theirs, and they must have been able to see it when they were building their fire, too."
"Good! Oh, we'll take them down a peg or two before we're done today, Bessie!"
"Don't be too confident yet, Dolly. Remember this is only the start. There's ever so much more to be done before we've won."
"I don't care! You and I have done our share, anyhow."
"You certainly have," said Eleanor Mercer's laughing voice. "But Bessie's right; it isn't time to celebrate yet. Come on, now, we're all going to be busy cooking and getting ready to cook."
Dolly and Bessie looked at the girls emerging from the trail in surprised delight.
"Well, you've done your share, and more, too," said Bessie. "We thought we came pretty fast, and we didn't expect you for another fifteen minutes, anyway."
"Well, we didn't exactly loiter on the way. I expect we'd all be glad of a chance to rest a little, but that will have to come later. We'll be able to take things easy while we're eating. We're each to allow a full hour for that, you see, no matter when we get ready."
"But if we're ready to start eating first we can start clearing up first, too, can't we?" asked Dolly.
"Certainly! That's the object of hurrying now. When we're ready to sit down we're to make two smokes, and they are to do the same, and again when we've finished, or when our hour is up, at least. We'll keep tabs on one another that way, you see, and each side will know just how much the other has done. There's got to be some such arrangement as that to make it interesting."
"Yes," said Margery Burton. "It wouldn't really seem like a race unless we knew a little something about what the other side was doing, I think."
"Well," said Eleanor, "I see you've got a splendid fire. I'll appoint you chief cook, Margery. You are to be here at the fire, and Zara shall help you."
Zara sprang to attention at once, and she and Margery unwrapped the ham, and got out the big boiler in which it was to be cooked.
"You go and get water, Dolly and Bessie," said Eleanor, then. "There are the buckets. Hurry, now, so that the water can be boiling while the others are fixing the ham."
And so dividing up the tasks that were to be done, she assigned one to each girl. They were all as busy as bees in a moment, and the work flew beneath their accustomed fingers. Miss Eleanor knew the girls thoroughly, and while, as a rule, she saw to it that each girl had to do a certain number of things that did not particularly appeal to her since that made for good discipline, she managed matters differently today.
It was a time to give each girl the sort of work she most enjoyed, and which, therefore, she was likely to do better and more quickly than any of the other girls.
Although a stranger, hearing the singing, and seeing the bustling group of girls without understanding just what they were doing, might have thought he was looking on at a scene of great confusion, order really ruled. Each girl knew exactly what she was to do, and there was no overlapping. Things were done once, and once only, whereas, at the ordinary picnic there are half a dozen willing hands for one task, and none at all for another.
"Too many cooks spoil the broth," says the proverb, and the same rule applies doubly to such meals as the one the girls were so busily preparing. But there was no spoiling here, and in a surprisingly short time most of the girls were able to rest. Places were laid for the meal; plenty of water had been provided for the cooks, and there was an ample heap of firewood beside the fire.
"I'll be ready for dinner when it's time, all right," said Dolly, sniffing the delicious odor of the cooking ham as it rose from the fire. "My, but that smells good!"
"I've heard some people who had to cook meals say that it spoiled their appetites, and that they didn't enjoy meals they had to cook themselves," said Eleanor. "But I don't believe that applies to us a bit. You'll be able to eat with the rest of us, won't you, Margery—you and Zara?"
"I can't speak for Zara," said Margery, laughing. "But I certainly can for myself. Just you watch me when dinner's ready! Let's start the coffee, Zara."
A great coffee pot had been brought, and a muslin sack full of coffee. This sack was now put in the coffee pot, which was filled with water, and the pot was set on the fire. There is no better way of making coffee. The finest French drip coffee pot in the world can't equal the brew that this simple and old-fashioned method produces. And anyone who has ever tasted really good coffee made in such a fashion will agree that this is so.
"Can those boys really cook, Miss Eleanor?" asked Dolly, looking toward the other peak, whence smoke was rising steadily.
"Can't they, just!" said Eleanor, heartily. "What makes you ask that, Dolly?"
"I don't know. It seems sort of funny for them to be able to do it, that's all. You expect boys to do lots of other things, but cooking seems to be a girl's business."
"Oh, there are lots of times when it's a good thing for a man to be able to cook himself a meal, especially when he's camping out. And they certainly can do it—those Boy Scouts."
"Have you ever tasted any of their cooking?"
"I certainly have. One day I was out for a long tramp near the city, and I managed to lose way in some fashion. You know some of the roads are pretty lonely, and I managed to go a long way without coming to any sort of a house where I wanted to stop and ask them to let me have something to eat, and I was nearly starved."
"What did you do? Wasn't there even a store where you could have bought something?"
"I didn't find it, if there was. Well, finally I decided to try a short cut through some woods, and I hadn't gone very far when I ran plump into this same troop of Boy Scouts that is on the other peak now!"
"I bet you were glad to see them!"
"Indeed I was. I knew Mr. Hastings, you see, and when I told him I was lost and hungry, he made me sit down right away, and he explained that they were just going to have an early supper."
"That must have been good news!"
"If you knew how hungry I was, you'd believe it. Well, I never have had a meal that tasted half so good. They had crisp bacon, and the most delicious coffee, and real biscuit!"
"Biscuit! And had they cooked them themselves?"
"They certainly had—and they were so good and flaky they fairly melted in my mouth. If you'd tasted that supper you'd never ask again if boys could cook. Those boys over there today will fare just as well as we do ourselves, and they'll have just as good a time getting the meal ready, too."
"I guess they're better able to look after themselves than most of the boys we know at home."
"Dinner!" cried Margery, then. "Everything else ready? We'll be all ready for you in a jiffy now. The ham's cooked, and so are the potatoes and the corn is all roasted!"
"We're ready whenever you are," said Eleanor, with a glance at the "table." "Dolly, you and Bessie can send up your two smoke signals now. I do believe we're ready to eat before they are!"
"Oh, we're going to beat them all the way!" said Dolly, happily.
Bessie and Dolly, holding the blanket together, wasted no time in making the signal that let those on the other peak know that the Camp Fire was ahead in another stage of the race, and, just as the second smoke was made, a faint cheer was carried across the space between the two peaks by the wind, which had shifted.
But it was fully twenty minutes after the girls had begun their meal before two pillars of smoke rose from South Peak as a sign that over there, too, the meal was ready.
"What a shame that we've got to waste a whole hour eating!" said Dolly.
"I don't call it waste. I'm dog-tired," said Margery. "I'm mighty glad to sit down and rest, and I'm mighty hungry, too."
"So'm I," said Bessie. And there were plenty to echo that.
"Well, if no one else will say it, I will," said Margery, presently. "This is a good dinner, if I did help cook it."
"No one ever praises your cooking any more; they're too busy eating," said Eleanor. "You established your reputation long ago."
"Well, this was the sort of dinner you couldn't spoil," admitted Margery, frankly. "And when people are frightfully hungry, you only waste your time if you do any really fine cooking for them. All they want is food, and they don't care much what it is, or how it's cooked."
"You don't go on that principle, though, Margery. I notice you take just as much trouble with your cooking whether it's likely to be appreciated or not."
"I do that for my own sake because I really enjoy cooking. I know what I'm going to do next year if I can. Teach cooking in the high school. And I think I can get the work, too."
"That's fine, Margery. I know you'll enjoy it."
"I think it will be pretty good fun. You know, it isn't only just the girls in school. A whole lot of older girls come down—brides, and girls who are going to be married. And they are the silliest things, sometimes!"
"Time's nearly up," said Eleanor, looking at her watch. "Bessie, signal four times with the smoke. I want to see if my watch is right by Mr. Hastings'."
Four times the smoke rose, and from the other peak rose two short answering smokes.
"We arranged that signal, you see," said Eleanor. "Now, watch! He'll show the time by his watch. Count the smokes carefully."
First of all came two smokes.
"That's the hour; two o'clock," said Eleanor. "Now count the next lot carefully; that'll be the first digit of the minutes."
Four smoke pillars rose, at regular intervals. And then, after a well-marked pause, six more went up.
"All right," said Eleanor. "Answer with four smokes. That means it was forty-six minutes past two, fourteen minutes to three, when they started signalling. And my watch and his agree exactly, so that's all right."
"We'll have a good lead when we are able to start cleaning up," she continued. "But we can't waste any time. We start at two minutes to three, and you want to remember that they know just how far behind they are, and we won't be able to gain any more time from now on."
"Why not, Miss Eleanor," asked Margery, "if we've done it so far?"
"It's going to be very different now, Margery. I don't say that they exactly despised us before, but I certainly do believe they underestimated us. They thought they were going to have an easy time, and they probably loafed a little this morning. But now, you see, they know that they're in for a licking if they don't do mighty well, and they'll strain every nerve to beat us."
"Oh, I suppose so, but we've really got a splendid lead."
"Yes. And do you know what will happen if we don't look out? We'll be over-confident, just the way they were this morning, and it will have just the same result. In a race, you know, a good runner will very often let a slower one stay ahead until they are near the finish. They call it making the pace. And then, when he gets ready, he goes right by, and wins as he likes."
But the warning, although Eleanor was sure that it had been needed, seemed to spur the girls on. They were waiting eagerly when she gave the word to start cleaning up, and each girl, her task assigned to her in advance, was at work as soon as the command to go was given.
In no time at all, as it seemed, the dishes ware washed. Then Bessie and Dolly, as tenders of the fire, brought buckets of water and poured them over the glowing embers, for the rule of the Camp Fire never to leave a spark of flame behind them in the woods was strictly enforced.
They put the fire out while the others finished packing the things that had to be taken back. All the rubbish had been burned before water was poured on the fire, and when everything was finished and the girls were ready to start the march back to Long Lake there was no sign of their visit except the blackened ring where the fire had burned.
"Zara, I'm going to leave you here as a sentry when we start," said Eleanor. "I'll carry your pack until you join us."
"How long am I to stay?" asked Zara.
"Until you see that their fire is put out. That will mean that they will be ready to start within two minutes, and I want to know just how much of a start we have on the hike home."
"I see. As soon as they put it out I'm to start after you and report?"
"Yes. Here's my watch. Remember the exact time. If they catch up with us, it will be on this hike."
Then they started, singing happily as they went down the hill. The homeward path was easy. Burdens were lighter than they had been on the trip from Long Lake, and the path was mostly down hill. And, moreover, the Camp Fire Girls had the consciousness that, in order to win, they needed only to hold the advantage they had gained.
"Here's Zara!" cried Bessie, who had been looking behind her.
"Good! What time did they put out their fire?" asked Eleanor.
"Just ten minutes after you started," said Zara. "I came as quickly as I could, but you must have been walking fast."
"I told you they'd begin gaining on us," said Eleanor. "See, they picked up ten minutes in clearing up. Come on, now, we must hurry!"
Hurry they did, and when they reached Long Lake there was a brief period of bustle. A new fire had to be made, and they worked with feverish haste. But they were in time. Bessie and Dolly sent up the first smoke signal before any pillar appeared at the other end of the lake. But the margin was small, for the first Boy Scout pillar rose just as they sent up their third!