CHAPTER XV
COALS OF FIRE
There wasn't a single dissenting voice. Once they knew what was required, the girls rushed at once to their rooms to dress, and within ten minutes they were all assembled on the porch. Mingled with them were most of the girls from Miss Halsted's camp, thoroughly frightened and much distressed, and evidently entirely forgetful of the trouble that had existed as late as that evening between the two camps.
"Now, I'll tell you very quickly what the situation is," said Eleanor. "Don't mind asking questions, but make them short. It seems that some of the other girls over there were angry at Gladys when they got back there after Miss Brown came here to see me. And they told her she had been wrong in setting them against us."
"I knew she was the one who had done it!" Dolly whispered to Bessie.
"She and one other girl, Marcia Bates, were great chums, and they got angry. They said they wouldn't stay to be abused—isn't that right, Miss Brown?—and they decided to go for a walk in the woods back of the lake here."
"They've often done it before," said Miss Brown. "I thought it was all right and they would have gone, anyhow, even if I'd told them not to do it."
"When they started," Eleanor went on, "the moon was up, and there were plenty of stars, so that they should have been able to find their way back easily, guided by the moon or by the Big Bear—the Dipper. But it's clouded up since then and it's begun to rain. The wind has changed, too, and they might easily have lost themselves."
"Wouldn't they be on a regular trail?" asked Margery Burton.
"There aren't any regular trails back here," spoke up one of the girls from the Halsted camp. "There are just a lot of little paths that criss-cross back and forth, and keep on getting mixed up. It's hard enough to find your way in daylight."
"They have sent for guides from the big hotel at the head of the lake," said Eleanor. "They will get here as soon as they can, and a few men are out searching already. But I think the best thing for us to do is to organize a regular patrol. We'll beat up the mountain quickly, and pretty well together, in a long line, so that there won't be more than a hundred feet between any two of us. Then when we get to the ridge about half way up we'll start back, and cover the ground more carefully, if we haven't found them."
"Why won't we go beyond the ridge?" asked Dolly.
"We'll leave that part to the men. I think myself that it's most unlikely they would go beyond that. I've had our guides here make up a whole lot of resinous torches. They'll burn very brightly, and for a long time, and each of us will take as many as she can carry, about fifteen or twenty.
"And I've made up a lot of little first-aid packages, in case one of the girls is hurt, or has twisted her ankle. That may be the reason they're out so late. When we start to come back we'll break up in twos, and each pair will go back and forth, instead of coming straight down, so that we'll cover the whole side of the mountain."
"How shall we know if we find them?" asked Bessie. "I mean how will the others know?"
"I've got one horn for every two of us," said Eleanor. "One toot won't mean anything, just that we're keeping in touch. But whoever finds them is to blow five or six times, very close together. It's very still in the woods, and a signal like that can be heard even when you're a long way from it."
"Can't some of us go and help, Miss Mercer?" asked one of the Halsted girls, the one, incidentally, who had been the ruling spirit in the trick to spoil the pleasures of swimming for the Camp Fire Girls.
"I think you better stay at home, and get a lot of good hot coffee or broth or something ready for them when they get back," said Eleanor. "They'll need something of the sort, I can promise you. And really, I'm afraid you'd be rather useless in the woods. Our girls, you see, have to be able to find their way pretty well. You'll be more useful at home."
"I don't expect to find them on the way up," said Eleanor, as they started. "We might, of course, but we'll look better coming back, and it's then that I think we'll have the best chance. Come on, now! Shout every little while."
The night was pitch black now. A fine mist of rain was falling and threatening to become a steady downpour. It was a bad night for anyone, even those who were hardened, to be out in the woods without shelter or special covering, and it was about as bad as it could be for girls who were not at all used to even the slightest exposure.
Eleanor's face was very grave, and she looked exceedingly worried as she crossed back and forth in front of the line of Camp Fire Girls, lifting her own voice in shouts to the lost ones, and giving hints here and there for the more important homeward journey.
The trip up the mountain produced no results. The rain was falling more heavily, and, moreover, the wind was rising. It blew hard through the trees and the silence of the woods that Eleanor had spoken of was a thing of the past. The wind sighed and groaned, and Eleanor grew more and more worried.
"We've got to search just as carefully as we can," she said. "We mustn't leave any part of this ground uncovered. With all the noise the wind is making, we might easily pass within a few feet of them and shout at the top of our lungs without them hearing us. It is going to be even harder to find them than I feared, but we have just got to do the best we can."
At the top of the ridge of which she had spoken, Eleanor marshalled her forces. She told them off two by two, and Bessie and Dolly were assigned to work together.
"I'm going to cover the whole ground, and keep in touch with all of you," she said. "Keep blowing your horns, there's more chance that they will be heard. You all have your pocket compasses and plenty of matches, haven't you? I don't want any of my own girls to be lost."
"All right," she said, when they had all answered. "Now I want each of you to take a strip about six yards wide as we go down, and just walk back and forth across it. If you come to any gullies or holes where they might have fallen down be particularly careful. Light your torches, and look into them. Don't pay attention to the paths or trails, just cover the ground."
"Oh, I do hope we can find them!" said Bessie, as they started. "I'd hate to think of their being out here all night on a night like this."
"Yes, and in a way it's really my fault," said Dolly, remorsefully.
"Why, Dolly, how can you think that?"
"It was because Gladys quarrelled with the rest of them that she went out. And if I hadn't thrown those mice in at them there wouldn't have been any quarrel. Don't you see?"
"I think it's silly to blame yourself, though, Dolly. She might have gone out just the same, anyhow."
"Well, I'll never forgive myself if anything happens to them, Bessie. I might have kept my temper, the way you and Margery did. They didn't do any more to me than they did to the rest of you. Oh, I am sorry, and I am going to try to control myself better after this."
Then they went on in silence for a time. Bessie felt sorry for Dolly, and she really did think that Dolly's conscience, now that it was beginning to awaken, was doing more than its share. It was unlike the care-free Dolly to worry about anything she had done, but it was like her, too, to accuse herself unsparingly once she began to realize that she might possibly be in the wrong. It was Dolly's old misfortune that was grieving her now; her inability to forecast consequences before they came along to confound her.
For a long time they had no results, and the blowing of horns and the occasional flash of a torch between the trees showed them that the others were meeting with no better success. Sometimes, too, Eleanor joined them for a moment. She could tell them nothing, and they continued to search with unabated vigor.
"Look, Bessie!" said Dolly, suddenly. She had lighted a torch to explore a gully a few moments before, and it was still burning brightly. Now it showed them the opening of what looked like a cave, black and dismal looking.
"Why, do you think they might be in there?" asked Bessie. "I'll blow my horn in the mouth. They'd hear that, and come out."
But blow as hard as she would, there was no answer. She turned away in disappointment.
"I'm afraid they're not there," she said.
"I'm going in to find out," said Dolly, suddenly. "They might not have heard us. You can't tell what that horn would sound like in there; it might not make any noise at all."
"Oh, I don't believe they're in there," said Bessie. "And I think it might be dangerous. There might be snakes there, or a hole you would fall into, Dolly."
"I don't care! This is all my fault, and I'm going!"
And without another word, she plunged into the dark entrance. Bessie tried to call her back, but Dolly paid no heed. And in a moment, first leaving behind signs of their having gone in, Bessie followed her, lighting another torch. She had not gone far when she heard a happy cry from Dolly.
"Here they are! I've found them!" Dolly shouted. "They're sound asleep, and I don't believe there's a thing the matter with them!"
Nor was there. Both the lost girls slept soundly, and when Gladys finally woke up, blinking at the light of the torches, she looked indignantly at Dolly.
"You're a sneak, Dolly Ransom!" she said. "I should think you would want to stay with your own sort of people—"
But Dolly was too happy at finding the pair of strays to care what Gladys said to her.
"Oh, come off, Gladys!" she said. "I suppose you don't know that you're lost, and that half the people around the lake are out looking for you? Come on! You'll catch a frightful cold lying here with those thin dresses on. Hurry, now!"
And finally she managed to arouse them enough to make them understand the situation. Even then, however, Gladys was sullen.
"That's that silly old Miss Brown," she said. "It's just like her to go running off to your crowd for help, Dolly. I suppose we ought to be grateful, but we'd have been all right there until morning."
Dolly didn't care to argue the matter. Her one thought now was to get outside of the cave and send out by means of the horns the glad news that the lost ones were found. In a few moments she and Bessie, blowing with all their might, announced the good tidings.
"Now you two will just walk as fast as you can, so that you can get into bed and have something warm inside of you. I'll be pretty mad if you get pneumonia and die after all the trouble we've taken to save you!" she said, laughing.
Gladys wasn't in any mood, it seemed, to appreciate a joke. As a matter of fact, both she and Marcia Bates had awakened stiff from the cold, and though she wouldn't admit it she was very glad of the prospect of a warm and comfortable bed.
And when the searchers and the rescued ones reached the Halsted Camp, Gladys wasn't left long in doubt as to the fate of the vendetta she had declared against the Camp Fire Girls. For, even while she was being put to bed, she could hear the cheers that were being given by her own chums for the girls she had tried to make them despise.
"Oh, Miss Mercer, I think you and the Camp Fire Girls are splendid!" said Emily Turner, the big girl who had been the ringleader of the tricks with the motor boat. "You're going to stay here quite a while, aren't you?"
"No," said Eleanor, regretfully. "It was only the fire that made us stay here as long as we have. Now this wind and rain have ended that, and we'll go on as soon as the storm is over; day after to-morrow, if it clears up to-morrow, so that it will be dry when we start."
"Well, I hope we'll see you again—all of you," said Emily. "Come on, girls, let's give the school cheer for the Manasquan Camp Fire!"
They gave it with a will and then Dolly sprang to her feet.
"Now, then, the Wo-he-lo cheer!" she called.
They sang it happily, and then, as they moved toward their own camp, their voices rose in the good-night song of the Camp Fire: Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame.
"I believe Miss Eleanor was right, after all," said Bessie. "Those girls really like us now."
"All but Gladys Cooper," said Dolly. "But then she doesn't know any better. And she'll learn."
SUMMER SNOW
AND
OTHER FAIRY PLAYS
By GRACE RICHARDSON
Finding there is a wide demand for plays which commend themselves to amateurs and to casts comprised largely of children, Miss Richardson, already well and widely known, has here given four plays which are unusually clever and fill this need. They call for but little stage setting, and that of the simplest kind, are suited to presentation the year around, and can be effectively produced by amateurs without difficulty.