SUMMONED TO THE COUNCIL
"They're saved! They're saved!" shouted fifty voices, their owners almost wild with delight. With one common impulse they gathered up Tommy and Harriet and started to carry them into camp. Tommy offered no resistance. She submitted willingly. With Harriet it was different. She struggled, freed herself from the detaining arms, and sprang away from her rejoicing companions, laughing softly.
"I am perfectly able to take care of myself, thank you," she said.
"You certainly do not look it," declared the Chief Guardian. Harriet's face was pale, her eyes sunken, with dark rings underneath them, but in other ways she appeared to be her old self. "We shall both be as well as ever after we have had something warm to eat and drink."
"Tell us, oh, tell us about it," cried several girls in chorus.
"Not a word until after the girls have had something to eat and drink. They are completely exhausted." Mrs. Livingston gazed wonderingly at Harriet Burrell, knowing full well that the latter had borne the greater share of the burden in the battle that she must have had to fight through the long, dark night.
The cook girls were already making coffee and warming up food left over from their own breakfast, as being the quickest way to prepare something for the returned Meadow-Brook Girls. That meal strengthened and cheered them wonderfully. Tommy began to chatter after having drunk her first cup of coffee. Their companions sat about in a semi-circle watching them, scarcely able to restrain their curiosity as to what had happened during the night. Jane opened the recital by a question.
"Did you really mean that you wished fish for breakfast, Tommy?" she asked.
Grace regarded her with a frowning squint.
"I didn't want any fithh for breakfatht. It wath the fithh that wanted me for their breakfatht."
"And there are sharks off this coast, too!" gasped one of the girls.
"Were you in the water for long?" asked Miss Elting.
"It seemed like a long time, it seemed like hours and hours," admitted Harriet, accompanying the words with a bright smile that the keen-eyed Chief Guardian saw was forced.
"For hours!" cried the girls in chorus.
"If you feel able, please tell us about it," urged Hazel.
Mrs. Livingston shook her head.
"Both girls are going to bed immediately. Please fix up two cots for them in my tent. No, no," she added in answer to Harriet's protests, "it is my order. You are to turn in and sleep until supper time, if you wish; by that time we shall have the camp put to rights and you may talk to your hearts' content."
The Chief Guardian led the two girls to her tent, assisting them to remove their damp clothing, putting them in warm flannel night gowns and tucking them in their cots. Harriet insisted that she did not wish to be "babied," but, the guardian was firm. After tucking them in Mrs. Livingston sat down on the edge of Tommy's cot and began asking her questions, all of which Tommy answered volubly, Harriet now and then offering objections to her companion's praise. In a few moments the Chief Guardian was in possession of the whole story of the night's experiences.
"You are the same brave Harriet that we came to know so well at our camp in the Pocono Woods," said Mrs. Livingston. "There are not many like you; but we shall speak of your achievements later. Now I will draw the flap, and I do not wish to see it opened until sundown. I know that I may depend upon you to obey orders."
Harriet nodded. "There is something I should like to ask. Did you see anything of a sail boat in the bay this morning?"
"No. Why?"
"I saw one come in last night before the blow. It anchored in the cove. They had put out their lights before coming in, which made me wonder."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yes, I know. I wondered if they had been blown ashore?"
"We should have known of it if such had been the case. But I can't understand what a boat could be doing in here. This is a remote place where people seldom come. That was why I chose it for our summer camping place. I will ask the girls if they saw anything of the boat you mention, but it is doubtful."
"Another thing. Oh, I'm not going to keep you here talking with me all day."
"No; I want to go to thleep," interjected Grace.
"I saw a cabin down on that long point of land just this side of the bay. What is it?"
"A fisherman's cabin. It is not occupied, nor has it been in a very long time."
"Then why can't we Meadow-Brook Girls use it while we are in camp? I should love to be down by the water, with the sea almost at my feet."
"I should think you would have had enough of the sea, after your dreadful experience of last night," laughed Mrs. Livingston.
"I am fascinated with the sea. It is wonderful! Do you think we could have the cabin?"
"I will consult with Miss Elting. If she thinks it wise, I will see what can be done. Of course, it is a little farther from the camp than I like. I prefer to have my girls where I can have an eye on them at all times. But the Meadow-Brook Girls can be depended upon to take care of themselves, save that they are too venturesome. Yes, I will see what can be done."
"Oh, thank you ever so much," answered Harriet with glowing eyes. "Then, if we wish, we may sleep out on the sands when the nights are warm."
"I shall have to think about that, my dear. Now go to sleep. This evening I shall have more to say."
Tommy was already asleep. Harriet dropped into a heavy slumber within a very few moments after the Chief Guardian's departure. She did not awaken until the sun had dipped into the sea. As she forced herself to a realization of her surroundings, the merry chatter of voices was borne to her ears and the savory odor of camp cooking to her nostrils.
In the meantime an active day had been spent by the Camp Girls. There was much to be done, for the camp was in a confused condition after the storm of the preceding evening. A day of labor had given a keen zest to the appetites of the campers; added to this was the satisfaction of having completed their work. The camp now was in trim condition. Acting upon the orders of the Chief Guardian, the wood had been laid for a council fire. The orders had been issued for the girls to don ceremonial dress and report for a council at eight o'clock that evening.
The girls wondered what important subject was to come up for consideration, as it was not the evening for the regular weekly council fire that was always held during the summer encampment. Of all this Harriet was unaware. When she awakened she found dry clothing laid out for her to put on. The same had been done for Grace, who was still sleeping soundly. Harriet shook the little girl awake.
"It is nearly night, dear," she said. "How do you feel?"
Tommy blinked several times before replying. "How do I feel? Not tho wet ath I did latht night. I thmell thupper!" exclaimed Tommy, sitting up suddenly.
"I told you it was nearly night. Let's go out and see the girls. How good they all are to us!"
"I thuppothe they will all be looking at me and following me about ath though I wath thome thort of curiothity," complained Grace.
"Of course you would not like that. It would embarrass you, wouldn't it, Tommy?"
"It would embarrath me more if they didn't," answered Tommy honestly, puckering her face into frowns and squinting up at Harriet so whimsically that the older girl burst into a peal of merry laughter.
Instantly following the laugh, Jane's head was thrust through the tent opening. The head was in disorder, for Jane had found no time to attend to her hair. She had been working, which meant that she had been accomplishing things, for Jane was a host in herself when it came to work.
"Excuse the condition of my crowning glory, darlin's, but I couldn't wait to comb it. I have been sent to tell you that the grease is on the bacon and the potatoes are popping open in the hot ashes of the cook fire. We're going to cut off the tops of them, dig out a tunnel and fill the tunnel with butter. Um, um! Now, what do you think of that?"
In a twinkling Tommy was out of bed and gleefully hurrying into her clothes.
"I thought it would interest you, darlin'," chuckled Jane.
"You dress as if you were going to a fire," declared Harriet, with a good-natured laugh.
"She is," answered Crazy Jane; "the camp fire—the cook fire, I should say."
Tommy, during this dialogue, had not uttered a word. Finally, having got into her clothes to her satisfaction, she darted from the tent, spinning Jane half-way around as she dashed past her, the little girl twisting her hair into a hard knot as she ran.
"I want a potato with a hole in it," she shouted the moment she came in sight of the cook fire. Some one snatched a hot tuber from the ashes and tossed it to her. Tommy caught the potato, but dropped it instantly and began cooling her fingers. "I want one with a hole in it," she insisted.
"Bring it here and you shall have it," replied Miss Elting. Instead of picking up the potato and carrying it, Tommy propelled it along with the toe of her boot. She did not propose to burn her fingers again. The guardian gouged out a hole to the bottom, filling the hole with butter, Tommy's eyes growing larger and larger. Then she began to eat the potato with great relish, after having seasoned it with salt and pepper. This was no time for words, nor were any uttered until nothing but the blackened skin of the potato was left.
"Thave me!" gasped Tommy. "Pleathe, may I have another?"
"Don't you think it would be well to wait for supper?" suggested Miss Elting. "In your greediness you have forgotten the others."
"I beg your pardon, but I wath tho hungry! If you had been a fithh thwimming in the ocean all night you, too, would have an appetite. How would you like to be a fithh, Mith Livingthton?"
"I am quite content to be a mere human being," was the Chief Guardian's laughing reply. "Were you afraid when you found yourself out in the ocean all alone?"
"Afraid? I—I gueth I didn't think about that. I wath too buthy trying to keep from filling up with thalt water. Did you ever drink any of that water, Mith Livingthton?"
"Hardly."
"Then take the advice of a fithh, and don't."
All hands were called to supper, thus putting an end to the conversation, which had been heartily enjoyed by Mrs. Livingston. Tommy always was a source of amusement to her. She appreciated the active mind and the keen, if sometimes rude, retorts and ready answers of the little lisping girl.
After supper a short time was spent in visiting among the girls principally to discuss the marvelous experience of the two Meadow-Brook Girls; then one by one the girls left to go to their tents to don their ceremonial dress, and in place of the regulation serge uniform of the Camp Girls figures clad in the ceremonial dress, their hair hanging in two braids over their shoulders, and beads glistening about their necks, began to make their appearance.
Barely had the girls put on their ceremonial costumes before a moccasined Wau-Wau girl ran at an Indian lope through the camp, crying out the call for the council fire:
"Gather round the council fire,
The chieftain waits you there,"
chanted the runner, circling the camp after having gone straight through the center from her own tent. The girls began moving toward a dark spot in the young forest where the wood for the fire had been piled, but not yet lighted.
"What are we going to do?" questioned Tommy.
Miss Elting said she could not say; that the Chief Guardian had called the council. Silent figures took their places, sitting on the ground, curling their feet underneath them, speaking no words, waiting for the flame that would open the Wau-Wau council. At last all were seated. From among the number there stepped forward a dark figure who halted before the pile of dry wood, then, stooping, began rubbing two sticks together, while the circle of Camp Girls chanted:
"Flicker, flicker, flicker, flame;
Burn, fire, burn!"
A tiny blaze sprang from the two sticks, then the chant rose higher and higher, figures rose up, swaying their bodies from side to side in unison as the blaze grew into a flame and the flame into a roaring fire, the tongues of which reached almost to the tops of the slender trees that surrounded the camp of the Wau-Wau Girls.
"I light the light of health for Wau-Wau," announced the firemaker, turning her back to the flames and facing part of the circle of expectant faces on which the lights and shadows from the fire were playing weirdly.
This completed the opening ceremony. The council fire was in order, the purpose of the meeting would soon be explained, thus relieving the curiosity of some fifty girls who were burning to know what it was all about. Not the least curious of these was Tommy Thompson.