THEIR TROUBLES MULTIPLY
Harriet Burrell's position was, indeed, a perilous one. She was too plucky to release her grip on the rein, no matter what the cost to herself, and her gown. Clinging desperately to the rein she was jerked violently across the log road, the horse dragging her after him as he bolted in among the trees on the opposite side.
Harriet still hoped that she might be able to check the animal and bring it to a standstill. She did not pause to think what a foolhardy thing she was doing. All of a sudden the animal swung about in a half circle. He literally cracked the whip with Harriet Burrell. The rein slapped the side of a big tree. Harriet was lifted from her feet and hurled with great force into the middle of a heap of brush. The dead branches snapped under her weight and she landed at the bottom of the heap, then lay still.
Miss Elting upon finding that the other three girls were more scared than hurt, had run after the fleeing horse that was dragging Harriet away. She cried out in her alarm as she saw the girl land in the brush heap. But by the time Miss Elting had reached the spot, Harriet's pale, scratched face appeared above the top of the brush.
"Oh, my dear, my dear! Are you hurt?"
"Oh, I am all right, thank you," answered Harriet with a brave smile. "Was—was any one injured?"
Before answering Miss Elting had plunged into the brush waist deep to lend a hand to Harriet. The gowns of both women were considerably damaged before Harriet had been assisted from her uncomfortable predicament.
"You poor girl!" exclaimed Miss Elting.
"I am somewhat the worse for wear," smiled Harriet ruefully.
"Thave me, thave me!"
At sound of the familiar voice and the familiar words they turned to see Tommy running toward them.
"Jathper hath a fit," cried Tommy.
Miss Elting and Harriet ran back to the scene of the accident as fast as they could go. Harriet was limping a little. They found Jasper sitting at the base of the tree, holding his head and groaning. Hazel and Margery stood pale-faced gazing down at him.
"What seems to be the matter with him?" questioned Miss Elting.
"It ain't me. It's the hoss," groaned Jasper. "That three-year old cost me jest a hundred and fifty dollars two weeks ago."
"You will get him back," soothed Harriet
"Yes, but he's spiled. D' ye think Mis' Livingston'll ever trust me to take out another passel of girls behind that critter? And the rig! It's smashed. It's busted."
"I shouldn't worry until I had to," advised Miss Elting. "Just now we have other things to concern us."
"Which way did my hoss go?"
Harriet did not know. Her head had been in such a whirl at the time she had parted company with the animal, that she had lost all sense of direction. Miss Elting said the animal had started back toward Jamesburg.
"Then I must git back to the burg and find him," declared Jasper.
"He ithn't going to leave uth here in the woodth, ith he?" wailed Grace.
"Don't worry," replied the guardian. "Jasper, how far are we from town?"
"Nigh onto fifteen mile."
"Then we should be about five miles from the camp?"
He nodded.
"What do you propose to do with us in the meantime?" demanded Miss Elting.
"You kin wait here till I git another hoss and come back."
"No, thank you. We do not care to sit down here until you return, which will not be until some time to-morrow morning, even if you hurry."
"I got to git that hoss or another hoss," persisted Jasper.
"You will do nothing of the kind. You will remain right here with us," declared Miss Elting firmly. "You shall not go to Jamesburg for a horse until you have seen us safely in camp. Is there any chance of any one else driving past here?"
He shook his head.
"Why can't we walk it?" asked Harriet.
"I had been thinking of making that suggestion. Do you feel equal to it, Harriet?"
"Oh, yes. And the woods are so nice and cool and fragrant. I should prefer walking to riding behind that horse again."
"So should I," agreed Miss Elting with emphasis.
"I got to git a hoss," repeated Jasper stubbornly.
Twilight already was upon them. The forest would soon be in darkness.
"Girls, get together such of your belongings as you think yourselves able to carry. Jasper will also take a bundle. I would suggest that we put our changes of clothing into two bags and have him carry them."
"But our camp dresses are in the trunks," answered Hazel.
"We shall have to get along without them, that's all. Perhaps Mrs. Livingston may be able to fit us out until we get our own clothes. This is most unfortunate. I am awfully sorry, girls. I am afraid you will wish you hadn't accepted my invitation."
"Yeth. I with I'd thtayed at home," piped Tommy. She was very frank about it. There was no beating about the bush with Grace Thompson.
"This time you will have to walk whether you wish to or not," jeered Buster. "I don't want to walk, but I am willing to for the sake of seeing you do something you don't like for once. Just think, you will have to walk five miles, Tommy Thompson."
"Five mileth?"
"Yes."
"Oh, thave me! I won't. I'll thtay right here till Jathper getth another horthe."
"Very well," smiled Miss Elting. "You may remain here until he comes for you sometime to-morrow morning. Jasper, when the young women have their bags ready you will take two of them. We shall manage with the rest of the things very well, I think," she added sweetly.
Jasper obeyed meekly after glancing at the determined face of the guardian.
"We shall have to leave some of our belongings here. I suppose they will be perfectly safe?" she questioned.
Jasper grunted sourly.
Tommy stood observing the preparations for their departure, her alert eyes taking in everything. Especially did she eye Miss Elting, but the expression on the face of the latter told Grace nothing. Jasper dragged down the canopy top, surveyed it ruefully; then kicked it aside with a grunt of disgust.
"I gueth you'd like to kick the horthe too," observed Tommy.
Jasper gazed at her, started to say something, then checked himself. Margery and Hazel giggled. The man finally picked up the bags and stood sullenly waiting. Miss Elting and Harriet also carried suit cases, the other girls taking small packages with them. Tommy stood leaning defiantly against a tree.
"Good night, Tommy," called Miss Elting sweetly. "Keep out from under the trees, if a thunder storm should come up during the night." Harriet, Hazel and Margery suppressed their giggles. Tommy held her position, standing with head thrust forward, eyes narrowed, face drawn into sharp wrinkles.
"Oh, we oughtn't to do it," whispered Hazel.
"Never mind, dear," replied Miss Elting. "You don't think for an instant that Grace will remain behind, do you? This is one of several little lessons that we shall teach her this summer."
They walked on swiftly, for darkness had now overtaken them. All at once they heard a plaintive little wail behind them. A small figure came flying down the log road.
"Thave me! I'm tho afraid," pleaded Tommy, darting up beside Miss Elting and snuggling against her.
Then the Meadow-Brook Girls laughed. The woods rang with their laughter. They expressed no sympathy for Tommy. They were agreed that she had learned a good lesson. Tommy pouted, but clung closely to the guardian. About this time a halt had to be made while Harriet attended to the skirt of her gown that had been badly torn by the brush. Her companions assisted her in pinning it up. While absorbed in this task they had forgotten all about Jasper. They discovered his absence quite suddenly when Miss Elting raised her voice in a loud hello to him.
No answer came back.
"How provoking!" exclaimed Miss Elting.
"He has gone away and left us," moaned Margery.
"Do you think he could have gone back to Jamesburg?" questioned Harriet. "I believe he would if he dared."
"He had better not. I don't see that there is anything to be afraid of except that we might pass by the camp, which, I understand is some little distance from this road. Then again we must not get off the road or we are sure to lose our way. All keep close together. We will continue to walk on. We will call him frequently. I am certain that when he finds we are not keeping up with him, he will either return to see what has become of us or stop to wait."
For a full half hour they continued on their way, stumbling, catching their feet in vines that had trailed across the road occasionally, bumping into trees, but never once wholly getting off the log road. Now and then the call of a night bird fluttering from a tree near at hand, would send Margery and Tommy into a sudden panic. There are many weird sounds to be heard in the forest at night. It seemed as though the travelers heard them all. Had their guardian not been with them, at least two of the girls would have been hysterical. Harriet appeared undisturbed and Hazel held herself very well in hand. But all at once there came a sudden interruption that threatened at the moment to send them all fleeing for safety.
Margery who was walking to one side of the road and slightly in advance of Miss Elting, uttered a piercing scream. They heard her fall.
"Help, oh help!" cried Margery, terrified.
Harriet darted forward to her companion's assistance. She stumbled over something that moved and tried to push her aside. Harriet thrust out both hands and grappled with the object. She grasped a handful of hair.
"It's an animal!" cried the girl, tugging with all her might. "Quick! Help!"
Miss Elting ran forward, now really alarmed, the frightened Tommy still clinging to her skirts. Then came a voice, a male voice raised in angry protest.
"Leggo my whiskers, consarn ye!" it shouted. "Leggo, I tell ye. It's Jasper."
There followed a scuffle and a fall, as Jasper in trying to rise from the suit cases that he had been carrying, fell over them. He landed on his back, shouting angrily. Harriet sat down in the road overcome by a sudden weakness, then she laughed. The other girls, now that the tension had snapped, were laughing also, all except Tommy who was so frightened that she could not say a word.
"Jasper, what do you mean by frightening us in this manner?" demanded Miss Elting severely. "First, you run away from us then you frighten us nearly out of our wits."
"Yaas. Mebby ye think it's fun to pull a man's whiskers out when he ain't looking. I sot down here on them bags to rest. I was waitin' for ye to come up seein' as I'd got ahead. Then one of 'em had to come blundering along and fall over me. Before I knowd what had hit me, the other—I don't know who she is in the dark—lighted on my whiskers like a pesky mosquito," complained the driver.
Harriet ceased her laughing at once. She got up, stepping carefully over to the place where the driver was standing nursing his injured whiskers.
"It was I who pulled your whiskers, Mr. Jasper," she said. "I am so sorry. But—but I thought you were some sort of animal and—and——"
Harriet's concluding words were lost in a shout of laughter from the girls.
There was nothing more to be said. Harriet felt so humiliated that she was glad they were unable to see her face.
"Jasper!" commanded Miss Elting sharply. "I shall require you to keep just ahead of us within sound of our voices even though you cannot see us in the darkness. How far are we from the camp?"
"Three miles," answered the man sourly.
Tommy groaned.
"My feet are giving out," she complained.
"Let me help you along," said Harriet, placing an arm about her little companion. "Try to forget your tired feet."
"I've a pain in my neck too. I might forget the pain in my neck but the pain in my feet ith there to thtay."
"Never mind, we shall be at Camp Wau-Wau in a couple of hours, then we will have something to eat and you will go to bed and sleep. Isn't it all perfectly delightful, dear?" comforted Harriet.
"Yeth, it ith fine. Tho fine you can't thee it," agreed Tommy dolefully.
It was a trying journey at best. They had lost all track of time, not being able to consult their watches in the dark. Jasper had no matches and he was very irritable, which perhaps was not surprising in view of the fact that he had lost his horse and wrecked a wagon for which he undoubtedly would be called upon to pay, as it did not belong to him. After a time they gave up trying to obtain information from Jasper.
The dull glow of a fire through the trees gave them the first inkling that they were nearing their destination. Tommy was being fairly lifted along by Harriet The latter did not complain at supporting the girl and the suit case, but her arms ached from the exertion.
"There's the camp, dear," encouraged Harriet.
"Camp's a mile down the path," growled Jasper, bringing a groan from Margery and Grace. "That's the fire the girls built up so that we shouldn't go past the path."
"That was thoughtful," exclaimed Harriet. The building of the fire made quite an impression on her. This impression was strengthened when upon reaching the low fire she observed that all leaves and combustible matter had been raked away to a safe distance from the fire so that the forest might not be fired by the blaze. It was her first lesson in woodcraft on this eventful journey into the big forest.
They followed a dark path that wound in and out, a gloomy aisle in the great forest with the tops of the trees over their heads, so high as almost to be lost to view even in daylight, Margery puffing, Tommy uttering little moans now and then so that her companions might know of her misery. That last stretch along the narrow path seemed an endless journey. Then too, it will be recalled that the Meadow-Brook Girls had had nothing to eat since morning except the cold luncheon served by Miss Elting.
"There is the camp, girls," cried the latter some thirty minutes later as a second glow off to the left attracted her attention. "I am right, am I not, Jasper?"
Jasper grunted an affirmative, then led the way to Mrs. Livingston's tent, at Miss Elting's direction. It was the only tent with a light to be seen. The other tents were lost in the shadows of the forest, and the girls who were occupying them were lost in dreamland.
"Keep very quiet so you will not awaken any one," cautioned the guardian as they approached the Chief Guardian's tent, rapping gently on the tent pole. The flap was drawn quickly back. Mrs. Livingston welcomed the wanderers warmly.
The camp life of the Meadow-Brook Girls had really begun. Its activities and excitement were to begin within a few hours from the time of their arrival.