The Camp Fire Girls on Ellen's Isle; Or, The Trail of the Seven Cedars

by Hildegard G. Frey

Aunt Clara said that after such a strenuous day’s paddling, and with the prospect of another one before them it would be out of the question for them to sit up all night, but they might stay up until midnight if they chose and sleep several hours later in the morning.

Everyone else was too dead tired to want to sit up, so the two of them departed quietly into the woods where they could not hear the voices of the others and built a tiny fire. The proper way to keep watch in the woods is to do it all alone, but Hinpoha and Gladys compromised by agreeing not to say one word to each other all the while they sat there, 105 but to think their own thoughts in absolute silence. If the city girl thinks there is not a sound to be heard in the woods at night she should keep the watch some time and listen. Beside the calls of the whippoorwill and the other night birds, there are a hundred little noises that seem to be voices talking to one another in some soft, mysterious language. There are little rustlings, little sighings, little scurryings and patterings among the dry leaves, drowsy chirpings and plaintive croakings. The old workaday world seems to have slipped out of existence and a fairy world to have taken its place. And the girl who truly loves nature and the wide outdoors will not be frightened at being alone in the woods at night. It is like laying her ear against the wide, warm heart of the night and hearing it beat.

And to sit by a lonely watch fire in the woods in the dead of night is to unlock the doors of romance. Strange fancies flitted through the minds of the two girls as they sat there, and thoughts came which would never have come in daylight. Somehow they felt in the calmness of the night the nearness of God and the presence of the Great Mystery. All the petty little daylight perplexities faded from reality; their souls became serene, while their hearts beat high with ambition and resolve. They had no desire to speak to each other; each was planning out her life on a nobler scale; each was steeped in peace profound.

106Without warning they were roused from their reverie by a startled yell that shattered the silence and made the night hideous.

“What’s the matter?” they both shrieked, starting to their feet in great fright.

The yell had come from the direction of the girls’ sleeping place, and, taking to their heels, Gladys and Hinpoha sped through the woods to their friends. There they found everybody up and standing around with their blankets over their shoulders. A fire had been left burning in an open space and beside this, Aunt Clara, looking like an Indian squaw, was talking to a man who looked as if he might be a brother of the man who had jumped into the river after Eeny-Meeny that evening.

“What’s the matter?” they asked of Katherine.

“He ran into Eeny-Meeny,” explained Katherine, “and it scared the wits out of him.”

There was another rush of feet and Uncle Teddy and the Sandwiches came on a dead run. They had heard the yell and were coming to see what was the matter. The strange man in the Norfolk suit, nearly dead from embarrassment, explained that he and his friend were camping some distance up the river and his friend had gone out walking in the early evening and come home with dripping clothes, having accidentally fallen into the river. Here the girls and boys looked at each other and had much ado to keep their faces straight. The friend had gone to 107 bed and later in the evening had been taken with a severe chill. He had happened to mention that he passed a large camping party in his walk. Seeing the light of the fire through the trees and taking it to be this camp which his friend had seen he had taken the liberty of walking over to ask if Uncle Teddy had any brandy. But before he had seen any of the campers or come near enough to hail them he had run into something in the darkness, and upon scratching a match was horrified to see an Indian girl tied to a tree. (Katherine had tied Eeny-Meeny up so she wouldn’t fall over in the night.) In his fright he had cried out, and that was what had aroused the camp. He was very sorry, but he had never come upon an Indian in the woods at night, even a wooden cigar store one, and thought he might be pardoned for being frightened.

His exclamation when Eeny-Meeny was explained to him was just like that of his friend: “Well, really!” And there was that same shade of doubt in his voice as to the sanity of people who carried such a thing along with them on a canoe trip.